The Watch
by devils-biatch99
Summary: Draco is in love with Hermione, however when she dies, his father frames him for murder. Two year's later, he is a social outcast heated with revenge, and he gain’s Ginny's help through a deception, which he never believed would become true.
1. Default Chapter

The Watch  
  
Prologue  
  
Lyrics to Bastards Son  
  
A/N- the dates in this aren't accurate at all so bear with me. This prologue takes place when Draco is 18 and in his last year of Hogwarts. Ginny is 16, although not mentioned in the prologue.  
  
1986 England  
  
The two men and one female scrambled up the steep grassy incline to the cliff top above the Cornish sea. A gust of wind grabbed at their hair. Lucius Malfoy took another turn of the string around his hand as he increased his speed. Hermione Granger, ahead of all three, paused, doubling over, as the jet of silver sparks flew at her. Draco Malfoy held out his hand and hauled the girl up with him.  
  
They had reached the top of the cliff, which fell away beneath them to the jagged rocks and pounding surf far below. The three stood for a minute gazing at the dark mark that had been conjured up to illuminate the dark sky.  
  
'Avada.' the older male with the mass off white blonde hair, was cut off. Draco had positioned himself in between the two people.  
  
'No father, there's no need to kill her, its Harry the dark lord wants.'  
  
'How would you know what the dark lord wants or doesn't want?' Lucius barked impatiently, 'Now get out of the way'.  
  
'Father, don't be daft, you heard me the first time, No!' Draco said, beginning to turn paler then his hair. 'Its Harry we want, this mudblood is in love with Ron Weasley for fucks sake, we're wasting time.'  
  
'Fine Draco, I'll endure your sarcasm, which you seem to deem as witty and amusing and ask you, what would be possibly more fun then aimless killing?'  
  
'Hmm let's examine the facts shall we, Hermione is Harry Potters best friend, if you kill Hermione you wont be any closer to finding the boy who is using all the dark lords efforts to kill, but if you don't kill Hermione and leave her to me I will be able to gain sufficient information to secure Harry's where abouts, furthermore I am your only son and therefore your only heir it would secure my guesses that the insanity which runs in our blood has put all its money on you.'  
  
A slow smile lit up Lucius's face. 'Son I'm beginning to believe that you might actually have brains,' then more dangerously, ' or your just not gay and my suspicions were incorrect, and if that was the case, Draco let me remind you I am a Malfoy, the oldest living male one, if you play with me you play with fire and I will crush you like dried leaves, I will not hesitate to remove you from my will, heir or not.'  
  
Hermione, through out this long rendition, had been silently surveying the ocean. Her thin shoulders hunched as she shuddered, knowing that she could never betray Harry. She found the tunnel of water mesmerising. It seemed to invite her to jump, to follow it inexorable narrowing tunnel in a violent swirl of rushing wind to the foam tipped teeth at the bottom. She took a step forward, and then another and another.  
  
Hermione's scream went on forever, vying with the skirling calls of seagulls. And then, it stopped. The two men on the cliff top stared down the funnel as one muttered lumos and they could see the inert bundle lying on a flat rock far beneath. The waves sucked at Hermione's Hogwart robes.  
  
'You did it,' Lucius said, 'you saved me the trouble of killing her; you killed an innocent child, congratulations boy, that deserves a life sentence in Azkaban. But I can't afford to go there at the moment not in the ascent of Voldemorts rule.' He laughed, 'whoever heard of the head of the death eaters being sent into Azkaban. But I'll tell them you pushed her, the muggle way.'  
  
Draco gazed at his father, shock and horror imprinted on his face. They were father and son, they looked alike the only differentiation was the color of their eyes, the distinctive greyness which was held in Draco and the hollow darkness in Lucius'. They were angelic looking, with a mass of straight blonde hair framing an oval face; their frames were slender without the thinness of ill health; if it wasn't for the constant sneer painted upon their faces. Drano's body was broad and strong, his legs planted four square on the turf.  
  
'What do you mean?' he whispered, and there was dread in his voice and a ghastly vulnerability in his eyes.  
  
'I saw you,' Lucius said in a low voice, his eyes still narrowed. 'You tripped her, I saw you.'  
  
'No' Draco whispered again. 'No, I didn't. I was trying to help her, she killed herself, I loved her.'  
  
'It was you!' his father interrupted, anger mounting at his sons confession. 'I'll tell them what I saw and they'll believe me. You know they will.' He gazed at his son, and Draco felt the old helplessness and frustration wash through him as he read the triumph and malice on the cherubic face.  
  
They would believe Lucius. They always did. Everyone always believed Lucius. Suddenly he turned aside and ran wildly along the cliff looking for a way down to Hermione's lifeless body.  
  
Lucius stood and watched him until he disapparated over the cliff top a few yards away, his fingers for a second grabbing at the springy turf before he committed himself to apparating to the ministry, to tell the story of the head girls death bubbling from his lips, ready tears filling his eyes. 


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One  
  
London: February 1988  
  
Goodbye to you  
  
Goodbye to everything  
  
I thought I knew  
  
You were the one I loved  
  
The one thing that  
  
I tried to hold on to  
  
The one thing that  
  
I tried to hold on to  
  
And when the stars fall  
  
I will lie awake  
  
You're my shooting star  
  
-Michelle Branch-( Goodbye  
  
The mob had been filling the hall since before dawn, shoving for the best seats the room could propose, the lucky finding spots around the chair itself. Despite the light snow and the raw wind outside, there was a holiday atmosphere: wizards and witches, come in from all parts of England, for the display, sharing the filling of their hampers with their neighbours; children dodging in and out of the throng, chasing each other, collapsing in wrangling heaps to the floor; sharp-eyed townsfolk, fortunate enough to have houses along the road the prison van would take from Azkaban, shouting their prices for a seat in the window or on the roof.  
  
It vowed to be a demonstration worth paying for, the dementor's kiss of Nicholas Abely and Johnson Shicavonvick, two of the most disreputable men of the road who'd been intimidating people across England for the better part of a decade.  
  
'You'd think if they could catch them two, t'other wouldn't be 'ard to get,' a rosy cheeked woman unintelligibly through a morsel of apple pie.  
  
Her husband took a bottle of rum from the voluminous pocket of his great coat. 'They'll not nab Lord Lucifer, woman, you mark my words.' He took a enthusiastic swig and smeared his mouth with the back of his hand.  
  
'You seem very confident, sir,' an amused voice said behind him. 'What makes this so called Lord Lucifer harder to catch then his unfortunate friends?'  
  
The other man rapped the side of his nose and winked notably. 'He's clever, see. Cleverer then a barrel of apes. Give the Ministry the slip anytime. They says 'e can disappear in a puff of smoke, him an' that black 'orse of 'is, jest like Old Lucifer, the devil 'isself.'  
  
His questioner's smile was slightly sardonic as he took a pinch of dementor. He made no reply, however. He was close to the front of the crowd and, standing ahead and shoulders above the bulk of viewers, could effortlessly see the chair over the neighbouring heads. All suggestion of smile wiped clean from his face as he heard the rumble of enthusiasm from Tyburn Road that specified the loom of the van with the fated men. Using his elbows, he pressed through the crowds, disregarding the curses and the protests, until he'd reached the front chair.  
  
The dementor, was already situated for the kiss, waiting eagerly for the entrance of it's clients. Nearby was Percy Weasley, the ministry official in charge of the bodies afterwards.  
  
'A word with you, sir'  
  
Percy jumped and looked down from his perch. A man, inconspicuously dressed in a plain brown coat and pants, set him with a grey penetrating stare. 'How much for the bodies?' he asked, drawing out his wallet. It chinked abundantly as he laid it against the palm of his other hand, and Percy's eyes honed. He scrutinized the man closely and saw that although his clothes were plain, they were well cut and of excellent material. His linen was spotless, although without frills. His sharply calculating gaze included the fine soft leather boots with buckles that he immediately recognized as real silver. A thief - or at least Mr. Abely and Mr. Shickcavonic clearly had well to do friends.  
  
'20 galleons a piece' (A.N. I have no idea if that's a lot or not, so lets all just assume that in this case it is). He said with a moment's deliberation.  
  
The stranger's lip curled, and an air of acute distaste flickered over his face, but he opened his wallet without another word.  
  
Percy leaned down, extending his hand, and the man in brown counted the gold coins into his palm. Then he turned and beckoned four burly carriers, leaning on their van on the outskirts of the crowd. 'Convey the bodies to the Mermaids Tavern at Putney,' he said without expression, handing them a galleon each.  
  
'When they're safely at the Mermaids Tavern, there'll be another galleon each,' the man in the brown said coldly. Turning on his heel, he made to push his way through the crowd. He'd done what he'd come to do, guaranteed that his friends' bodies would not end up on the dismemberment table, under the surgeons wands, but he had no stomach to watch their deaths.  
  
He made fair progress until he reached the middle of the crowd; then the noise bloated from the Tyburn Road heralding the impending arrival of the prisoners from Azkaban, and he found he could not take one more step as the thrill rose to a fever pitch around him and the throng pressed even closer to the central chair. Resigned, he stood still, bracing himself against the buffeting as the crowd jumped on tiptoe, pushed and pulled, cursed and shouted, jostling for a better view.  
  
'Take yer 'at off, woman!' The guttural yell was escorted by a none too gentle shove at the grotesque confection of straw and orange dyed feathers.  
  
The infuriated owner, a florid faced carter's wife reeking of gin, swung round and dispatched a stream of obscenity that was answered in like form. The man in brown sighed and tried to close his nostrils to the reek of alcohol and unwashed humanity as the atmosphere heated up regardless of the still falling snow and the brutal wind. Something brushed against him; he felt a fluttering against his waistcoat, and he was instantaneously alert. He clapped his hand to the waistcoat, knowing what he would find. His watch was gone.  
  
Livid, he stared at the ocean of eager, panting faces, eyes radiant with excitement, mouths partly open. His incensed gaze fell on an upturned face beside him, standing so close to him a wisp of cinnamon colored hair brushed against his shoulder. It was the face of a Madonna. A perfect, pale oval, with tawny gold eyes set wide apart beneath a smooth, broad brow; luxuriant light brown eyelashes fluttered, and her beautiful mouth quivered in distress.  
  
Suddenly a loud voice roared, 'take care of your pockets! There's a bleedin' pick pocket around!' and a chorus if annoyance grew in the close air as people patted their clothing, and felt through pockets, and discovered that they too were missing sundry items.  
  
Almost instantly the girl standing beside him, swayed, moaned and sank downward. Instinctively, he caught her up before she could be lost in the sea of legs and heavily booted feet stamping on the floor. She hung limply against him, her face even paler then before, perspiration pearling upon her forehead.  
  
Her eyelashes fluttered and she murmured, 'Your pardon, sir,' before she collapsed again and began to slip from his hold.  
  
He towed her upright, manoeuvring her into his arms, and turned to push his way out of the crowd. 'Let me pass. The lady is fainting,' he declared frequently, the starkness of his voice having some effect so that at last he managed to make his way to the rear of the throng, who were now taken up with the spectacle at the chair. He'd reached a relatively empty space when the great roar from the crowd told him that both Nick and Jon had been given the kiss of death. His expression grew grimmer, and his eyelids dropped for a second over eyes that were gray and cold as arctic ice.  
  
'Thankyou, sir,' the bundle in his arms murmured in a faint voice as the girl stirred. 'I have lost my friends in the crush, and I was so afraid I would be trampled by all these people. But I'll manage very well now.'  
  
Her voice was surprisingly deep and rich. Her velvet cloak had fallen open as he'd pushed through the throng revealing simple muggle clothes. She gazed up at him and offered a quavering smile when he seemed disinclined to set her down.  
  
'How do you intend on finding your friends?' he asked, looking around pointedly at the seething press of civilization. 'They could be anywhere. This is no place for a young woman as yourself to be wondering about alone.'  
  
'Please, please don't let me trouble you further, sir,' she said. 'I'm certain I'll find them. they'll be looking for me.' She moved in his hold, and he distinguished more than a touch of determination in her effort to free herself.  
  
Suspicion flickered in his brain as he thought of the succession of events. It had all been very fitting. but surely he was wrong. This sweet faced, honey voiced innocent couldn't possibly have been light fingering her way through the crowd.  
  
Lucius's face sprang unwanted to recollection. Lucius as he was depicted by Narcissa as a child. Innocent, placid, charming, above suspicion little Lucius. Neither of his parents would hear a word against their darling- not his parents, or his family, or Harry, or any member of any importance in the Ministry, where Lucius ruled ultimate.  
  
'Put me down!' The girl's now incensed order brought him back to the present with a jolt.  
  
'In a minute,' he said thoughtfully. 'But let us first devote some attention to finding your friends. Where exactly did you loose them?'  
  
'If I knew exactly, I wouldn't find it hard locating them again,' she countered tartly. 'You have been very kind, and I know my family would be very grateful to you for rescuing me. I you give me your name and address, I'll ensure that a reward is sent to you.' She squirmed again with severe function.  
  
He constricted his hold, hitching her higher up against his chest. His voice was suave as he objected, 'I'm sorry I believe you misheard me, it would be bad character to leave a young girl such as yourself in these circumstances.' He looked around him with an air of anxious interest. 'No I really must restore you personally to your family.'  
  
He glanced down at her again. The hood of her cloak had fallen back, and snow was gathering on her glowing brown hair coiled smoothly around her head. Her expression was one of acute exasperation, banishing all trace of the swooning maiden in distress. 'Maybe, if you told me your name, we might make some inquires?' he suggested gently.  
  
'Athena she said through gritted teeth, praying that he'd be satisfied and set her on her feet. Once on the ground she'd be free and clear in a second. 'Athena Morgan. And I assure you, there is no need for you to remain with me any longer.'  
  
He smiled, persuaded now that he was right. 'Oh but I believe there is Miss Morgan. Athena. what an unusual name.'  
  
'My parents liked muggle studies in Hogwarts,' she replied speedily as she finally understood that he was playing with her. But why? Was he meaning to take advantage of her present vulnerability? On the whole he didn't strike her as a man ready to ravish a young lady in distress. oh God I'm starting to think like a romance novel. But he did look like a gentleman, not one who circled the ministry circles or C.V. (A.N.- Stands for Central Veritas ie central truth its like the FBI in America).  
  
But if not that, then why wouldn't he let her go? The jewels of her mornings work lay safely cloaked in a pouch tied around her waist laying securely against her thigh beneath her skirt. She could reach for it through her pocket, which allowed her to fine-tune the position of the pouch. He couldn't possibly feel the pouch, even holding her as he was, but it was time to bring this encounter to an end.  
  
Her hand came out of her coat and she drove her heel of her palm into his chin, jolting his head back. At the same time, she twisted her head and bit his upper arm hard.  
  
He released her like a hot brick, and she was up and running, weaving through the crowd with desperate agility; but she knew he was on her heels, a silent, deadly pursuit. She ducked into an alley, gasping for breath, hoping she'd given him the slip, but then she saw him advancing on the mouth of the alley, a look of set purpose on his face.  
  
She plunged out of the alley and back into the rowdy crowd that was beginning to disperse. The mood was now quarrelsome and voices were raised in streams of abuse, fights erupting as knots of people struggled to get out of the square. A rank of chairmen touted for custom as the throng eddied past them and Athena headed for the line. She glanced over her shoulder, praying that her pursuer hadn't followed her into the alley, but he was still behind her, keeping pace with her, pushing through the crowd, seeming not to worry and yet somehow gaining. There was relentlessness to this dogged pursuit, and her heart began pounding, the first tremors of panic fluttering over her skin. She had his watch. If he'd guessed and was intending to capture her and bring her before the magistrate, the CV would find out and have to get her out of it, that would cost money, which would be taken out of her pay and god knows she didn't have enough as it was.  
  
Her hand slipped through the slit in her skirt, feeling the laden pouch. The tapes beneath her clothes fastened her back and were impossible to reach one-handedly through the slit, so she couldn't untie the pouch and throw it from her at this point even if she wished. And she didn't wish. It would be cowardly to waste a morning's work. There was enough to pay the rent as well as contribute to the Burrows fund and put food on the table for a month to come. And if she gave it up, those heart-stopping, nauseating moments of terror that had accompanied every artful brush of her fingertips would have been for nothing.  
  
Resolutely she withdrew her hand and slithered sideways through a noisy family group bewailing the disappearance of a child. They closed up behind her arguing violently. The rank of cabs was almost ahead of her now. three more steps.  
  
'Hyde Park!' she gasped to the leading cab, and moved to step inside as she opened the door.  
  
'No, I don't think so Miss Morgan.' A hand closed over her hair pulling away the brown wig and discharging her own carrot colored hair. He quickly masked shock, as he quietly spoke, gently mocking, behind her. 'You see, I really do feel as if I have the duty to escort you home.'  
  
She was caught. But he couldn't know for sure that she had his watch. She was hardly dressed like a common thief and the only evidence he had was that she'd been standing beside him when the cry of 'pick pocket' had sounded. She turned to him with a haughty toss of her head. 'Sir, if you must insist to this harassment I will not hesitate to call the police into the matter.'  
  
Laughter glittered in the grey eyes bent with such a mocking solicitude upon her. 'On the contrary, maybe I should call him for you.'  
  
'You goin to Hyde Park lady or not?' the taxi driver ordered before she could gather her wits to deal with this very diliberate calling of her bluff.  
  
'Most certainly I am' with relief she turned to enter the chair.  
  
'No,' her infuriating companion said in the same pleasant tone as before. 'No, I really don't think so.' Taking her arm now in a grip that meant business, he drew her away from the line of cars. 'You and I are going to have a little talk, Miss Weasley.'  
  
'About what?' she snapped.  
  
'Oh, I think you know,' he said equably. 'A little matter of private property and public assaults. But let us get out of this crush.'  
  
She seemed to have no choice, but at least there was no more talk of police. Maybe he'd be satisfied with the return of his property and that would be the end to it. She said nothing, offering no further struggle as he swept her along before him through the gradually decreasing crowd.  
  
Suddenly the atmosphere changed. The mob began to push and shove with greater force, and a panicked murmur ran through their ranks. Voices were raised in warning and the murmur of panic became a full throated roar.  
  
'Shit', her companion swore as he identified the roar. He tightened his grip on her arm. 'Trust the press to know where to find the juice. We have to get out of here!'  
  
Ginny lost all desire to free herself from her companion, who was suddenly her only anchor. Her feet were swept from beneath her and if he hadn't dragged her against his body, she would have sunk to the ground. The whole mass of people surged forward, men, women, children, screaming as they fought their way to get out and run freely. An army of ministry officials and police poured into the square through Edgeware Road, rounding up those hurt or injured.  
  
Ginny had suddenly lost all sense of direction; she was aware only of the strong comforting grip on her arm as they were tumbled along with the tide. She could see nothing except for the chests and arms until something flashed along her sideways vision.  
  
'Over there' she yelled, trying to make herself heard above the tumult. She darted sideways, lowering her head and pushing like and enraged bull towards the deep doorway entrance. Her companion added his own bulk to the process, carving a path sideways through the throng until they were huddled in the doorway and the tide was sweeping past them.  
  
'Thank God!' Ginny leaned against the door at her back trying to catch her breath. Her hair had come loose from its pins and her shirt was torn exposing her chest. Her companions gaze slowly drifted over her disordered appearance, and abruptly she pulled her cloak around her tighter, covering her unkemptness, aware of the weight of the pouch lying heavily against her thigh.  
  
'Ron's kid sister, you've grown up with sharp eyes,' her companion observed calmly, leaning beside her, watching the passing stampede. 'We'll stay here until its over.'  
  
'I presume you too have a name?' she said in an effort to summon up her earlier assurance.  
  
'Oh yeah,' he agreed.  
  
'Nothing else was approaching. Ginny tapped her foot on the stone doorway. 'So what is it?'  
  
He looked at her. One eyebrow quizzically rose. 'At the moment, Lord Lucifer is at your service, Miss Weasley,'  
  
What did he mean by at this moment? 'Oh?' she said her jaw dropping. 'Lord Lucifer the thief?'  
  
He smiled and shrugged. 'A coincidence, I really don't know where people get these stories from.'  
  
Ginny shook her head as if trying to clear her thoughts. Lord Lucifer, given the devils colloquial name for his uncanny ability to evade the law. If he was as he said he was- not he looked what shed imagined him to look like. Then it seemed that he was intending to lay charge on her. But it seemed only reasonable and friendly in the circumstances to return his property without further delay. She slipped her hand inside her cloak, sliding her fingers into the slit in her gown, intending to extract the watch from her pouch. Then she realized he was watching her every movement, a sardonic spark in his eyes. She let her hand fall to her side and smiled nonchalantly. She didn't like the look in those slate grey eyes, and this was far too a public spot for an unsolicited admission of guilt, even to a fellow thief. in a way.  
  
The rushing mob was diminishing now, the cries and screams fading into the distance.  
  
'Come' Lord Lucifer said. 'I think it's safe to leave now.'  
  
'You go your way and I'll go mine' she said, stepping out of the doorway. There was no sign now of the taxis, who would have gone off to safety asap.  
  
'You seem remarkably obtuse for someone whom I'm convinced has a sharp head on her shoulders, despite the fact that she's a Weasley.' Her companion remarked in a tone of mild exasperation. 'We have yet to have our little discussion, if you recall.' He looked round, getting his bearings. 'My car is at the Hawks Nest. this way I believe.'  
  
Their 'little discussion' was obviously unavoidable. But at least there would be relative privacy at the inn. Then something clicked. No one spoke to Weasley's like that with the exception of two people. 'Draco Malfoy,' she laughed, 'Lord Lucifer'.  
  
He frowned, 'why is that so amusing, I thought it fitted my personality?'  
  
'You killed Hermione. oh shit' Ginny began to back away. When he caught her shoulders.  
  
'Ginny, I want to tell you something.' he looked at her straight in the eyes. 'I didn't kill Hermione. If you hang around long enough you might hear the truth, but I cant tell you now.'  
  
'What are you talking about?' Everytime she thought she understood what was happening; this man twisted the pieces on board.  
  
He sighed. 'I'm not usually considered incoherent. I'm not repeating it again, now lets go.'  
  
A hot tide of anger chased guilt, resignation, and apprehension into the mists. She'd allowed him to call the tune thus far because of the guilty weight of the pouch beneath her skirts, but he'd taken sufficient advantage of her disadvantage.  
  
'I'm not coming with you,' Ginny said quietly, her anger only visible in her snapping eyes and her increased pallor. 'I don't know what you have in mind, but if you attempt to abduct me, I'll scream so loudly it will bring every constable in the area.'  
  
He appeared not to have heard her, his attention directed to opening his car. 'Get into the car.' He said opening the passenger side door.  
  
'Are you perhaps hard of hearing?' Ginny asked, her voice low and fierce. 'Goodbye.' She spun on her heel and stalked out of the yard, her back prickling as she waited for the arresting hand on her shoulder. But nothing happened. She walked unmolested out of the Rose and Crown and into the narrow lane.  
  
The street was slippery with wet snow, and she shivered, but with the dull fatigue of anti climax as much as with the cold. A church clock chimed nine. It seemed extraordinary that it should still be so early after all the excitements and the dramas of this morning. Her office would be in full swing by now, unaware of her absence.  
  
She could just imagine mum, dad and Ron at home. The Creevey's who bought over the burrow now were owned three weeks of rent. She could take care of that now, with her wages.  
  
Ginny's step lengthened in thought and the car engine behind her didn't intrude her reverie. When they did, they car was almost upon her. She was hurrying down the centre of the lane, avoiding the filthy water and refuse in the kennel at the side. Now she had no choice but to jump sideways splashing through the kennel, if she wasn't to be run down. It was a common enough hazard in the side streets of the city.  
  
'Bloody hell!' she swore as the kennel filth stained her clothes. 'Rot in hell you.'  
  
The rest of the curse was lost as she was magically brought into the car.  
  
She opened her mouth and screamed, a shrill piercing clamor. Windows were flung open all along the lane, curious faces hanging out, peering down through the thickening veil of snow.  
  
'You wish to visit the local magistrate?' Draco murmured against her ear, making no attempt to still her screams. 'I'm sure he'll be interested in what you're concealing beneath your skirt.'  
  
Her scream faded into the pale cold air. 'And I'm sure he'd be interested to know who'll be laying charge,' she hissed. They hanged two of your kind this morning, I'm sure they'll be delighted to lay their hands on the third.'  
  
'And just who is going to identify me Miss Weasley?'  
  
She had no evidence but his own words. And she carried on her own person the most damning evidence of her own thievery. Once again she acknowledged defeat in bitter silence.  
  
They turned out of the alley. The snow falling heavily no, and Ginny had no sense of where they were or in what direction they were proceeding.  
  
'Where are you taking me?' Not that it would make much difference to know, she reflected dourly, trying to control her apprehension.  
  
'Into the country. Somewhere quiet, where we can have our little discussion.'  
  
'I have nothing to say to you.' It was a feeble defiance but she felt it was necessary to make it anyway.  
  
'But I have something to say to you.'  
  
'Let me out and I'll give you your goddamned watch!' Ginny exclaimed.  
  
'Oh, yes, you will give it back to me,' he agreed equably. 'All in good time, though, Miss Weasley. All in good time.'  
  
A.N.- hellllllllllll that took me ages. well review back cause I want to know what you think about it pleaseeeee.next chapter includes a bit of closer interaction if you get what I mean. I'll try and release a chapter once a week and that's it. 


	3. Chapter Two

Title- The Watch  
  
Summary- Ginny gets humiliated, tries to kill someone, is naked once and has a conversation about trust. I've decided to delay the draco ginny action until the next chapter. So anyway please r/r.  
  
Chapter Two  
  
Sorry Ms. Jackson, I am for real, never meant to make your daughter Cry, I apologize a trillion times, I'm sorry Ms. Jackson. -Outkast  
  
They drove through a maze of streets becoming ever narrower and poorer until they reached the river. Ginny felt as if she inhabited some romance novel, rapidly becoming nightmare as her own familiar London was left behind. For one wild moment she contemplated leaping from the car, but the car was travelling at a rapid speed. Then she contemplated killing him, after all she had a licence to kill, being part of the CV insured that, however she'd never actually killed anyone before, even if it was Draco. Women were frequently abducted from the streets, sometimes even from their own homes, but they were usually wealthy widowers or young heiresses to be framed for money. She didn't qualify on either account. Did Draco simply have rape on his mind?  
  
'What do you want with me?' she demanded. 'Why would you be interested in a common pickpocket?'  
  
'A most uncommon pickpocket,' her companion corrected in the most amused, equable tones he'd used throughout. 'A beautiful, well-spoken, well- dressed, and most artful pickpocket. That little fainting ploy was very clever. You rob me of my watch, then use me to effect your escape from the scene of the crime.' He laughed. 'Did you really think I would have let you go through with it?'  
  
'So it's revenge you want,' she said slowly, although he didn't sound the least bit vengeful. 'What are you going to do? Ravish me? Rob me? Kill me?'  
  
'What a vivid imagination you have, Miss Weasely. Ravishment has never appealed to me.' He chuckled. 'I've never found it necessary.'  
  
Ginny could think of nothing to say to this, since it struck her as perfectly true. Despite her anger and apprehension, she had to acknowledge there was something dismally attractive about Malfoy.  
  
'However,' he continued thoughtfully, 'if the idea appeals to you, I'm sure we could find a way to enjoy it.'  
  
The cool effrontery of this, tuning so neatly into her thoughts, brought her swinging round to face him, with her palm raised to wipe the mocking little smile from his lips.  
  
But he was ready for her, catching her wrist in his spare hand and forcing it down to her lap. 'You're a little too quick with your hands, Weasely. I haven't forgotten about your earlier attack, for which I intend to take reprisals.' There was no laughter on his face no, and his eyes were cold grey pools. 'I don't take kindly to being assaulted. Remember that.'  
  
'It was provoked,' she said pale with fury. 'First you wouldn't release me and now your insulting me, I cant believe I have to listen to this.'  
  
'I didn't realise it was an insult' he responded with a careless shrug, but still maintaining his hold on her wrist. 'I can sense your thoughts Weasely.'  
  
'What are they then?'  
  
'Your thinking we're two of a kind. Of course a Slytherin and a Gryffindor could never be that close, but I could imagine we might enjoy each others company a lot if we were in other circumstances.'  
  
'Arrogant, stupid, slimy, rat faced cur!' she hissed, aware of how helpless she was to do more then use her tongue to express her outrage.  
  
'So I've been told on more then one occasion, by the same type of people actually, ruddy Gryffindors,' he said indifferently. 'But this discussion is becoming annoying, and is I'm not mistaken, we're heading for a blizzard, so hold your tongue until we find ourselves warm and dry again.'  
  
The weather was growing increasingly miserable, and her words would be of no heed to an iceman, so Ginny lapsed into fulminating silence. They crossed over Westminster Bridge, and the wind sweeping off the river came at them in wicked gusts, blowing stinging snow into the car. The few travellers they encountered scurried along with their heads down, cloaks pulled tight around them.  
  
They passed through the village of Battersea, where the doors were shut tight. They passed an inn, and Ginny looked longingly at the smoke curling from its chimneys. But the iceman clearly had a destination in mind and wasn't going to stop until they had reached it. The houses were farther and farther apart now, little hamlets shrouded in snow, only a mangy mongrel or two cowering in the narrow village streets. Ginny wondered what her family was thinking, huddled in at the burrow. If they thought about it all, they'd assume she'd taken shelter from the storm.  
  
But perhaps, she'd never see him again.  
  
As they ventured deeper into the countryside, that possibility seemed even more a probability. Ginny had never been this far outside the city, and she couldn't imagine how she would ever get back (A/N- you would suppose she could take the knight bus, but she cant coz being part of the CV you face danger everyday, if the knight bus showed up every time their would be no CV meaning the Knight bus does not come to their aid), even supposing the ice man released her after he'd done whatever he intended to do with her. What did he mean by taking reprisals?  
  
To her annoyance tears filled her eyes. Tears of fright and cold and helplessness, they trickled warmly down her icy cheeks, mingling with the snow. Then she bit her upper lip hard, concentrating on the pain until the moment of weakness had passed. She would not give her insufferable abductor the satisfaction of seeing her weep.  
  
'There's no need to be scared,' he said suddenly, and again she wondered how he could read her mind. 'I don't intend to hurt you.'  
  
'I'm not scared,' she denied. 'I'm angry and I want to go home. My parents will be worrying about me. You cant just sweep an innocent person of the streets as if they have no family and no responsibility.'  
  
'But being totally frank, Miss Weasely, your not an innocent person,' he pointed out gently. They were entering now through Putney village, the inhospitable expanse of the snow-covered heath crowning the hill ahead of them. 'When someone earns their bread in the dubious fashion you've chosen, they must expect the unexpected.'  
  
'And what about you? The iceman! What about the way you choose to earn a living?' she fired back.  
  
'I always expect the unexpected ,' he returned serenely, 'And what more unexpected then having ones watch stolen by and intriguing pickpocket who's brother should be labled hazardous to humanity, Why do you call me iceman?' he asked amused.  
  
She shrugged her shoulders 'You look like one.'  
  
'Should I call you shrew?'  
  
'Why?'  
  
'Your acting like one.'  
  
She felt like screaming in frustration. 'Who are you, and what do you want from me?'  
  
'You still owe me Ginny.'  
  
'Oh Lord, are you going to harp on this issue again?'  
  
His slow nod infuriated her. He was thoroughly enjoying himself. When Ginny realized that fact her bluster of indignation evaporated. She knew she was never going to make him see sense. The man was daft, the sooner she got away from him the better. First however, she would have to find a way to placate him. 'Alright,' she agreed. 'I owe you. There we are in complete agreement.'  
  
'Glad to hear it.'  
  
What ever response Ginny might have made died on her lips as she saw the lights of an inn glowing up ahead, throwing a welcoming shaft through the grey white veil of driving snow, the front door flew open and a burly man in a baize apron emerged, accompanied by a gangly lad.  
  
'Eh, Luke, such filthy weather! We've been waitin' on ye,' the man said as the lad took the keys to the car. 'Is it done?'  
  
'Yes, they'll bring the bodies here.' The iceman took the other mans hand in a tight grip. Then they both nodded as if they had put some issue to rest, and Draco looked back at her. 'Journeys end Miss Morgan.' He reached behind her, 'in with you now.' A hand at the small of her back propelled her into the inn, to the left a stone flagged passageway and into a room where the heat from the two massive fireplaces nearly knocked her sideways.  
  
The taproom was brightly lit, tallow candles augmenting the firelight, and seemed full of faces, all turned towards her. Mouth-watering aromas came from the kitchen, Ginny could glimpse through an open door behind the bar, and she realised how hungry she was. It must be past noon now and she'd eaten nothing since before dawn, when she'd had a piece of bread and butter before going out to work.  
  
Well, what's this ye've brought back with ye, Luke?' a jovial voice demanded, the owner sat placidly puffing a long churchwarden pipe.  
  
'This, my friends is Miss Athena Morgan,' Draco said, shrugging out of his snow-covered cloak and tossing it onto a chair.  
  
'Is that so?' A woman stood in the doorway to the kitchen, her angular body swathed in a flowery apron. Her arms were folded across her breasts, and she held a wooden ladle in one hand. Her eyes were sharp and unfriendly as they rested on Ginny, who stood in the entrance to the taproom, melting snow from her cloak dripping to the flagstones to form a puddle around her sodden boots. 'And jest who's Miss Morgan, Luke?'  
  
'A most artful young lady, Bessie,' the highwayman responded. He regarded Ginny with a quizzical smile that merely increased her unease. 'Do take off your cloak Miss Morgan.'  
  
When she didn't immediately obey, he deftly unfastened the clasp at her neck and removed the sodden garment, handing it to a wide-eyed serving wench. 'Dry it, Tabitha.'  
  
Ginny felt uncomfortably exposed in her muggle clothes. Her fingers twitched at the torn top. She felt totally out of place in this room full of rough men or were they wizards. they only other women were the hard eyed Bessie in the doorway and the little serving girl.  
  
'Now, to the first order of business,' Lord Lucifer said cheerfully. 'Time to pay your dues, miss Morgan.' Catching her around the waist, he swept her up and onto the long deal table in the centre of the room. Gunny for the moment was too stunned to say anything. She stared down at the sea of faces, amused and anticipatory now, as if waiting for some entertainment to begin.  
  
'Somewhere on herself, Miss Morgan has concealed the fruits of her mornings work at Tyburn,' Draco solemnly informed the room. 'And not incidentally my watch. One of my most valued possessions,' he added judiciously.  
  
'Not the one ye nabbed from old Denbeigh, Luke?'  
  
'The very same, Tom,' he concurred with a grave nod. 'Now, Miss Morgan, I think its time for you to reveal you're hiding place and show us your proceeds.'  
  
She stared at him, her cheeks crimson, as she understood what he was saying. In the doorway waiting for the mob to pass, he'd seen her hand move stealthily when she;d been about to retore his watch. He knew precisely where she kept the pouch. He would know it was fastened around her waist, and to untie it, she would have to raise her skirt.  
  
'You rotten bastard,' she said softly.  
  
'Retribution, Miss Morgan, remember?' One eyebrow lifted. Casually, he reached up to the rack of clay pipes above the bar and took one down. She stood unmoving on the table as he filled the pipe, struck a match and lit the tobacco. A plume of smoke rose to mingle with the wood smoke, and the already heavy cloud of pipe smoke in the low beamed room.  
  
'Of course Bessie could assist you if you find yourself in difficulty,' he observed, gesturing to where the aproned woman still stood in the kitchen doorway. He held Ginny's livid gaze, his eyes cool and penetrating and not in the least amused. This was not a man to cross, Ginny recognized with dull foreboding as Bessie readily stepped forward, wiping her hands on the apron.  
  
She had no choice but to comply- not if she was to prevent the woman from stripping the gown from her back in the middle of the room.  
  
Closing her mind to the grinning circle of faces, as they pressed closer to the table, she hitched up her skirt. In her haste and embarrassment, her fingers were all thumbs. During an eternity of mortification she fumbled desperately with the ribbon that secured the lambskin pouch to her waist. But at last it fell free.  
  
Draco was standing at the table, one hand extended for his prize, the other cradling the bowl of the pipe. His face expressionless. Ginny hurled the heavy pouch at his head with all her force; then she jumped from the table and ran for the door, showing her way through the audience. She grabbed her soaked cloak from the girl who still held it in the doorway and raced into the passage and out into the blinding blizzard, not knowing where she was going or what she was going to do, just running down the street her feet sinking in the drifting snow.  
  
The wind cut through the flimsy material of her gown as she struggled to wrap herself in the cloak while she was running. Her fingers were quickly numbed, but she continued to run, head down into the storm, sobbing with rage.  
  
The pounding steps behind her were deadened by the snow and she heard nothing at all until a hand descended on her shoulder and Draco declared in considerable exasperation, 'Bloody hell woman, are you mad?'  
  
'Let me go!' she twisted away from him, glaring at him through the thick curtain of snow. 'Scum! You got what you wanted now leave me alone.'  
  
'I don't want another death on my conscience,' he declared.  
  
'What conscience? You don't know the meaning of the word you piece of slime!'  
  
Disconcertingly, the man laughed, and it was a rich merry sound this time, worlds apart from the mockery before. 'Your entitled to that, I grant you. But I owed you something for a bite on the arm and a fist to the chin. You weren't hurt, and you showed me nothing that I haven't seen before, so truce and come back in the warm before you die out here.'  
  
'I'd rather die, then have a Malfoy help me!' She swung back into the storm, plowwing her way up the narrow street, blinded now by the snowflakes clinging to her lashes.  
  
'I never thought I'd hear a Gryffindor, let alone the Weasels only sister swearing that much in a single day, do they know you are given to extravagant language and distempered freaks, Weasely?' So saying, he swept her off her feet. She yelled with the full force of her lungs, but the sound was snatched away with the wind, and she could do nothing to save herself from being carted unceremoniously back to the Mermaids tavern.  
  
He kicked the door closed behind him and headed for a flight of wooden stairs, calling, 'Bessie, send Tabitha up with some towels, and we'll have dinner in half an hour.'  
  
Bessie appeared at the doorway, watching as Lord Lucifer ascended the stairs two at a time, seemingly unhampered by his still struggling and cursing burden. She pursed her lips disapprovingly and returned to her kitchen. 'Ta, you heard Lord Luke. Towels for his room.'  
  
'Aye.' Tabitha hastened to find the towels.  
  
Above stairs a door banged resoundingly.  
  
'Lord of Hell woman, you may look thin, but your weight is huge,' Draco declared, setting his captive on her feet with a sigh of relief. 'Now, just stop cursing me and settle down. You can't go anywhere at the moment so you might as well accept my hospitality with grace.'  
  
There was an inexorable logic to this that even Ginny, in her fury, could not deny. And at least they were private, away from the sea of grinning faces that had witnessed her embarrassment.  
  
She fell silent and looked around the chamber. It was warm and well lit with both candles and bulbs, a checkered carpet on the oak floor, a round table in the window, two upholstered chairs set on either side of the hearth, where a log fire blazed. The scent of lavender and beeswax mingled with the wood smoke; tha andirons gleamed with polish, the pewter candlesticks shone, the wooden furniture had the rich patina of good housekeeping.  
  
Suddenly, she was very tired, and her hunger rose anew with the aromas wafting up the stairs. With a little shrug she tossed aside her sodden cloak and stepped over to the fire, bending to warm her frozen hands, wincing when her fingertips tingled with the burning sensation, Her eyelashes and hair were white with snow, her feet numb in her wet doc martens. The hem of her skirt was drenched, and an uncontrollable shiver ripped through her.  
  
Draco stood watching her, a speculative frown in his eyes. Her body was a graceful curve as she bent toward the flame, and now that she'd ceased her vilification and her struggles, he absorbed again the Madonna like beauty of her oval face, the innocent radiance of her tawny eyes.  
  
One couldn't judge a book by its cover. His lips tautened at the bitter reminder of his father, and he waited for the angelic image of his father to fade with a violent surge of icy rage that always accompanied it. It was a familiar cycle, one he'd lived with for two years. But one day very soon he'd be able to put the evil to rest, and he'd be free of the malignant chains of deceit and injustice. And Lucius would know his son again.  
  
A knock at the door cut into his reverie. He bade the knocker to enter, and Tabitha came in, a tray with a jug and two glasses in her hands. A pile of towels under one arm.  
  
'Ere y'are sir. Will I set the table for dinner?'  
  
'In ten minutes.' He waved her away. She put her burdens on the table and left.  
  
Ginny turned from the fire. The iceman tossed her a towel. 'Dry your hair, Miss Weaseley.'  
  
She caught it automatically and began to unpin her hair while he poured them wine. Bending once again to the fire, she rubbed her loosened hair vigorously, but she was still shivering in the thin, damp clothes and her feet were still numb.  
  
'Drink this,' he handed her a mug. She cradled it between her hands, inhaling the heady spicy fragrance. She could think of nothing to say to him and no reason for the moment to quibble with his curt commands.  
  
Abruptly he left the room. Ginny drank deeply of the sack before sitting in an armchair to pull off her boots and stockings. With a sigh of relief she wriggled her frozen toes in the fires warmth. It hurt dreadfully as they came back to life but the pain was most welcome. Damn, if only she had brought her wand with her.  
  
'Take of those clothes and put his on. Tab will dry your clothes.'  
  
In the bliss of warming her self she'd almost forgotten her abductor and hadn't heard him return. She looked up startled. He was holding out a velvet robe, his expression impassive. My clothes will dry quite well on myself.' Ginny declared icily.  
  
'Don't be an idiot, you'll have a cold by morning if you stay in them.' He dropped the robe on her lap. She continued to stare at him, that delicate, innocent picture of outraged modesty, and for a moment he was almost persuaded by it.  
  
But no one should ever judge a book by its cover. She'd fooled him once already, and he knew her for a consummate actress. She was grown woman, a thief who worked the streets. And she would have used her body as currency whenever necessary.  
  
'Don't pretend it would be the first time you've removed your dress in front of a man.' He said with dismissive scorn. 'However, I don't object to the play. Games can add a little spice, I agree.' He smiled but it was not a nice smile. 'Shall I turn my back?' He suited action to words.  
  
Ginny looked for a knife. for anything. She found the poker.  
  
He caught the chink of iron as it touched the fender and spund round just as she raised the weapon, her little white teeth bared, murder in her eyes.  
  
'Lord of hell!' he jumped sideways as she brought the poker down with a force that would have cracked his skull. She came after him again and he caught her arm. They swayed in a deadly ballet, and he was surprised at how strong she was- or maybe it was her fury that gave her strength. Grimly he twisted her wrist until her fingers opened and the poker clattered to the floor.  
  
'What on earth was that all about?' he demanded, taking her shoulders and shaking her vigorously. 'You would have killed me.'  
  
'That was my intention,' she said with soft venom. 'You dare talk to me like that.'  
  
'Now, wait a minute!' He held up a hand imperatively. 'Your not gonna tell me your still a virgin?'  
  
'What gives you the right to assume I'm not!' Golden fires burned in her eyes, and her face was deathly pale. And he knew absolutely that this was not an act.  
  
'Ruddy hell!' he released her and ran a hand through his hair as his mouth twisted ruefully. 'How was I to assume that you weren't, your eighteen Ginny, this isn't the 17th century?'  
  
'You know nothing about me!'  
  
'No' he conceded, 'Clearly not. Well for what its worth, there are still virgins around, like McGonagall. And now, I suggest you get out of those clothes while I turn my face to the wall and contemplate my sin.' He stalked over to the window and stared fixedly out into the driving snow and darkening afternoon.  
  
In silence Ginny picked up the robe that she had tossed to the floor in her fury and turned back to the fire. The wind rattled the window panes, and an icy draft needled its way into the room. She knew she couldn't stay in her soaked clothes. Hastily she threw off all her clothes, lastly reaching for her bra.  
  
'Bloody hell!' her finger nail broke as she struggled with the hooks.  
  
'Problem with hooks?' Draco spoke from the window without turning round. 'Perhaps I can be of help.'  
  
How could he possibly know! She set her teeth. 'Go to hell!'  
  
'I'm not unfamiliar with it,' he observed, and there was a touch of that rich merry laughter in his voice now.  
  
'You do surprise me!' Ginny renewed her battle, biting her lip n frustration.  
  
'It will take a moment if you'd come over here. I'll keep my eyes closed if you wish.'  
  
'An just how do you intend unhooking me with your eyes closed?' she demanded.  
  
'By touch.' The amusement in his voice was now full fledged.  
  
Ginny struggled with herself for a second, and then stalked over to him. 'Close your eyes.'  
  
He turned from the window, eyes obediently closed, and she gave him her back. His fingers moved deftly over the hooks.  
  
She looked suspiciously over her shoulder, but his eyes were still closed. He was, however grinning broadly. The hooks flew undone, and in a second holding the unfastened bra against her body.  
  
'Thankyou, Malfoy,' she said formally.  
  
'The pleasures all mine,' he responded. 'I find I'm an efficient lady's maid. Is there anything else you would like me to do?'  
  
'Turn your back!' she commanded, wondering why she found his mischievous grin so infectious. It struck her as an insane reaction after the insults he'd heaped upon her since she'd been fool enough to pick at his watch.  
  
She slipped into the velvet robe; it was warm, thick and voluminous. 'You may turn around now.' She bent to gather up her discarded garments.  
  
'The view was getting a little monotonous,' he commented, turning his back to the room and coming over to the fire. He took up his glass and drank, regarding her thoughtfully over the rim. 'We really do seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot.'  
  
'Abduction and you being a Malfoy is hardly a recipe for friendship,' Ginny snapped, folding her clothes neatly, conscious of her nakedness beneath the velvet robe, and a faint fragrance coming from the garment. It was a lingering mélange of lavender and soap, with the underlying tang of male skin, Draco's smell, she realized, one she'd been inhaling most of the day.  
  
'Will I set the table now, sir?' Tab popped her head around the door.  
  
'Yes, thankyou.' Luke responded.  
  
Tab hastened to the round table with a tray of linen, cutlery and glasses. Task completed she glanced at Ginny, still huddled at the fireplace. 'Will I take your clothes?'  
  
'Yes, please, Tabitha.' Ginny answered her before Draco could reply. 'As soon as they're dry, bring them back.'  
  
'Yes miss.' Tab gathered up the clothes and hurried out.  
  
'You wont need them again today,' Draco observed, going back to the window. 'Its almost dark, and storm shows no sign of abating.'  
  
'I'm not staying here,' Ginny stated flatly.  
  
Draco merely shrugged. There was no point arguing the toss; the facts spoke for themselves, and she'd have to accept the realities soon enough.  
  
Bessie, Tabitha, and the landlord arrived in solemn procession, bearing laden trays, and in the latters case, two bottles of burgundy that he placed on the table before reverently drawing the corks.  
  
Gunny sniffed hungrily as Bessie lifted the lid to the oyster soup and began to ladle the contents into two deep pewter bowls.  
  
'Will ye' carve the mutton yourself, Luke, or shall Ben come back to do it for ye?'  
  
'I'll carve, thankyou, Bessie.' Lord Luke came to the table. He took a sip of the burgundy that Ben had poured into a glass and nodded his appreciation. 'Where've you been keeping this one, Ben?'  
  
The landlords ruddy color deepened. 'I've a few bottles left Luke, my way of thankin ye.'  
  
'No need, Ben, no need. They were my friends too.'  
  
The two men looked at each other with the same quiet intensity Ginny had noticed before, then nodded in unison, and Ben backed out of the room. Bessie cast one final look over the table; then she waved Tabitha from the room, turning to follow her.  
  
At the door she paused. 'She'll be lyin' with ye, then?' She inclined her head in Ginnys direction, the gesture contemptuous and hostile.  
  
'Aye,' Draco said shortly. Bessie left closing the door with a sharp click.  
  
Ginny stood immobile, stunned by her own powerlessness. She was trapped in this place, at the mercy of this man and his muggle friends.  
  
'Before you start heaping food at my head Miss Weaseley, let me remind you that this is no place for a woman to lie alone.'  
  
'Before you robbed me, I had sufficient funds to pay my own way,' Ginny declared, finding her voice and relieved to find that she sounded much stronger then she felt.  
  
'We have an interesting morality here,' he observed. 'Come to the table before the soup cools. To what extent can it be said that a robber can ethically be guilty of robbing a robber?'  
  
Ginny followed her nose to the table, too hungry to fight enticement. 'Clearly you've never heard of honor amongst thieves, Lucifer.'  
  
'On the contrary.' he held out a chair for her, then reached into his pocket and dropped the lambskin pouch onto the table beside her. 'You will find that I've simply retrieved my own property, Miss Weasley.'  
  
Ginny had not yet had the chance to examine the proceeds of her mornings work. She weighed the pouch in her hand, for the moment forgetting both her hunger and the dark swirling currents of apprehension. If she had money, she could leave this place. She could hire a carriage to take her back to London. She could hire a bedchamber until the storm dies. She would not be dependant on the mercy and whim of Draco Malfoy.  
  
She could even pay for her own dinner. She laid the pouch beside her place again and calmly picked up her spoon.  
  
'The Inn' Draco said, once again reading her mind with uncanny accuracy 'does not cater to stray travellers. There are no bedchambers available for hire.'  
  
'How could that be.' She looked up sharply.  
  
'Other trades are plied here.' He cut into a loaf of barley bread and passed her a slick on the end of the knife, that little mocking smile played over his lips. 'The business we conduct here is best kept to ourselves Miss Weaseley'  
  
'A den of thieves,' she said bitterly. 'Why?' She dropped her spoon with sudden vehemence, the CV would love to get their hands on this one. 'Why did you bring me here?'  
  
'A whim,' he responded, dipping bread into his soup. 'You intrigued me. I'm not usually taken advantage of . and besides.' he smiled lazily 'I thought once we'd settled our business we might come to some arrangement for a pleasant evening.'  
  
Ginny's fingers closed around the stem of her wine glass. 'I how you've had second thoughts by now.'  
  
He shrugged. 'I didn't think you'd still be a virgin though.'  
  
'And now that you know I am?' she asked tautly.  
  
'Oh I think I can live with the disappointment,' he said carelessly, pushing back his chair. 'May I carve you some mutton?'  
  
'But why, then, did you tell Bessie I would sleep with you?'  
  
'Because you will not last five minutes with your virginity if I did not.' He said with a touch of impatience. 'I thought I explained that.'  
  
'So I have to trust you?'  
  
'Well it's not exactly what I would call a multiple choice question.' He placed a laden platter before her. 'Eat your dinner Miss Weaseley, you'll sleep better with a full stomach.' 


	4. Chapter Three

Title- The Watch  
  
Summary- This chapter I've DEFINITLY rated R simply because its uhh lol its very sexual.It's also a very serious chapter ill try n make the next chapter funnier. back to my description of what happens- Draco and Ginny sleep in the same bed, lol that's it all the same its pretty long, plz plz review.  
  
Chapter Three  
  
It's a damn cold night Tryin to figure out this life Wont you take me by the hand Take me somewhere knew I don't know who you are But I'm with you Whys everything so confusing?  
  
-Avril Lavigne  
  
Miss Weasley's appetite was undiminished even by her current situation, Draco reflected in some hilarity, carving another slice of mutton for her as she heaped roast potatoes onto her platter and reached for the bowl of onion sauce.  
  
Her skin was now carefully hinted with pink from the warmth and the food and wine. While she offered no conversation, she seemed relaxed for the first time since she'd crossed his path that morning, as if she'd come to some acceptance of her situation.  
  
Ginny Weaseley picking pockets at Tyburn for the fun of it. He sipped his wine, regarding her closely through half closed eyes. Presumably she was no stranger to hunger and cold, despite the fact she was a Weasley and being poor was imbedded in their blood stream, however it was never a Gryffindor who stooped that low, always a Slytherin.  
  
Maybe, she worked for the CV as an undercover agent, in that case through some odd way she might be working through Lucius, but that wouldn't make much sense. If she knew about it she would have given it away, more like she was told to pick the pockets of people at Tyburn to find some information for the CV. His gaze rested on the serenely beautiful specimen opposite him- such innocent beauty concealing the talents of a successful thief and devil knows what else. He'd already seen evidence of a lethal temper. She and Lucius. what a pair they would make.  
  
His long fingers idly stroking around the rim of his glass suddenly stilled as the idea rose fully formed in his mind. He sat quietly, allowing it to grow and spread its wings. His most brilliant inspirations came to him in this way and had done so since childhood. He knew to leave his mind free reign to examine potential problems, abandon certain possibilities until lighting upon the perfectly plotted arrangement.  
  
A slow smile spread over his face, but his eyes were terrifying in their icy aloofness. It would work. But how to sell a scheme like his own, to a woman who didn't fit any recognizable mould? What motives would capture her? She was to some extent an adventuress and maybe, therefore, open to a profitable venture. But was she a free agent?  
  
'Tell me.' he broke the silence so suddenly that she jumped; spilling ruby drops from the wineglass she was carrying to her lips. 'Tell me why you happen to be working the crowd at Tyburn.'  
  
Ginny frowned dabbing at the stain on the pristine white cloth with her napkin. She'd been rather surprised he hadn't asked earlier. 'I work for the CV, I do what they tell me to pay the rent and put food on the table.' She forked another potato from the dish.  
  
Draco leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs at the ankle. 'Do you live by yourself?'  
  
'No, with Ron and dad' Draco pushed the bowl of cabbage towards her. She nodded her thanks and took a large spoonful onto her plate.  
  
'What were you doing at Tyburn for the CV?'  
  
'I don't consider that your business,' she replied icily.  
  
'No, its not.' He leaned forward to refill their glasses. 'Nevertheless I'd like to know.' His smile was suddenly coaxing, inviting, his voice quiet, his eyes no longer arctic but the gray of a soft dawn.  
  
Since the disaster Ginny had had no one to talk to, no one to share her desperate struggles or to listen to the fierce bubbling rage of helplessness, except for her brothers, but they all had someone outside the family to talk to, except for her. She'd fought along with her brothers to keep her father from menial work, biting her tongue when the urge to heap angry recriminations on his head had become almost overpowering. She could say nothing to him because he didn't understand their situation. He had no idea they were poor, no idea of the means she was forced to adopt to keep them from starvation. Thr invitation to speak of the unspeakable suddenly became irresistible. Draco may even understand some of it, even if he was a Malfoy.  
  
She pushed her plate away.  
  
'My father use to work for the Ministry, clever in his own ways, but a fool in the ways of the world, if it wasn't for Mom,' she stated. 'And since her. her death, he has drawn even further into his books. He sees and hears nothing outside his texts. Three years ago we had a sizeable fortune, enough to keep him and Molly in comfort, only- only he fell among the death eaters.'  
  
She looked bleakly across the table. 'If there someone else there it wouldn't have happened, but everyone else was visiting an aunt or elsewhere. While I was gone, two death eaters apparated into his confidence and persuaded him to invest in a muggle mine in Transylvania. Needless to say, the mine didn't exist.'  
  
'I see,' he said neutrally. There were thieves and rogues in every level of society. 'So your father lost everything.'  
  
'Yes, but his friends appear to be doing very well,' she said bitterly. 'They survived the war and now live among the rich in the high of the ministry, and now inhabit the burrow. They lent him money with the house as security to meet the original cost of his investment. Needless to say, they were very sorry when they were obliged to foreclose.'  
  
Her mouth was tight, and he read murder in her eyes. 'The bastards allowed him to take his books. But any bet they didn't even need them.'  
  
Silence fell, broken only by the spurt of flame as a piece of green wood caught in the hearth. A log shifted, and Draco rose from the table to mend the fire. He knew what she was thinking. 'You don't dream of revenge?' he raised an eyebrow.  
  
'I might dream about it,' she said. But I live too close to reality to indulge in a fantasy, I try to make as much as I can, and when things become impossible.' she shrugged and sipped her wine. 'Why then I turn to my brothers.'  
  
He turned to the table. 'Do you care for some Stilton with Bessie's apple pie?'  
  
The change of subject was a relief, breaking the intensity of the last ten minutes. It had been a strange sensation to speak aloud the seething fury and to express the hatred she felt for the men who had ruined her own life as ruthlessly and indifferently as they' ruined her father. But she felt oddly comforted by Malfoy's attention, by the knowledge that he understood and certainty that he didn't judge.  
  
'What about you?' she said suddenly, 'What brought you to the road, Lord Lucifer?'  
  
He cut into the latticed pastry of the apple pie without replying for a minute. Then he said offhandedly, 'a piece of the past. a near death experience.'  
  
'A near death experience?' Ginny looked at him in astonishment. 'How could a misunderstanding turn you into a thief?'  
  
'In the same way that your fathers lack of understanding turned you into what you are.' He slid a piece of pie onto a plate and passed it over to her.  
  
Ginny hesitated, unsatisfied with this reply but sensing that it was all she was going to get. The confidences seemed to be flowing only one way. She shrugged and dug a spoon into the round of the Stilton, placing a creamy blue streaked mound on her plate beside the pie. There was no point neglecting a good dinner just because her confidences weren't reciprocated.  
  
'Will your father and Ron be worried about you?' Her companion took a forkful of his own pie.  
  
'What do you think?' she demanded. 'When people are abducted, they usually leave worried people behind?'  
  
'How worried will they be?' Draco asked steadily.  
  
Ginny sighed. There seemed little point in exaggerating the situation; the highwayman wasn't going to suffer any guilty pangs, anyway. 'He's not always aware of me,' she explained. 'His grasp of the past. is not very acute to say the least. he tends to live in the past. Joan and Ron will look after him and they'll assume I've taken shelter from the storm somewhere.'  
  
He nodded. 'I'll return you home in the morning, if the storms gone.'  
  
'That's so nice of you,' she said, not expecting the irony to make much of a dent, but she had been forcibly reminded that her virtue this night was totally dependent upon the good faith and moral principles of Malfoy.  
  
As she'd expected her companion was unmoved by her tone; in fact, he barely noticed it in his own exultant absorption. His long slender fingers traced the diamond cuts in his wineglass, the firelight catching the amethyst signet ring, the green and silver colors refracted by the glass. Ginny Weasley could be the perfect accomplice for his long awaited vengeance, and she had laid out for him the perfect motive to persuade her to join with him. He guessed that the promise of her own revenge would be more potent than an end to her financial difficulties, but the latter would be added incentive.  
  
However, he was convinced she wasn't ready for the proposal yet. She was devious of a kind, but he sensed that her commitment to the dark realms beyond the law was not yet wholehearted. For all her hardships, she hadn't touched the desperation that pushed a man inexorably over the edge.  
  
Ginny suddenly felt cold as if a draft had touched her back. Draco was looking at her across the table, but he wasn't seeing her. His eyes were as blank and flat as polished slate, and there was no expression on his face. She wanted to speak, to say or do something to break the dreadful mask like intensity as he sat gazing upon some grim internal landscape, but words wouldn't come to her lips. Then his features came to life again, and his gaze became once more alert, once more recognizing her as his eyes rested shrewd and assessing on her countenance. And the silent assessment was almost as unnerving as the blank stare as before.  
  
Draco was thinking that before Ginny Weasley would embrace their joint vengeance, she would need something to bind her to him, to make her see herself differently, to see herself as a woman who could perpetrate a deadly confidence trick on the vanity and twisted complacence of those who'd injured them first. He could see one obvious way to move her across the border into his dark world, to break the fragile chains of virginity.  
  
'Excuse me for a moment, Miss Weasley.' He rose from his chair offering a courtly bow before leaving the room.  
  
Unnerved, Ginny abandoned her pie and propped her elbow on the table, resting her chin on her palm. She gazed out of the window. It was pitch- dark and the pane was crusted with snow. From the tap room below drunken voices rose in a raucous chorus of some ribald song, and there was clatter as a chair went over. There was an edge of menace to the noise. A sense of whatever order was maintained could at any moment be plunged into anarchy. Draco's haunt was definitely not a good place for a woman alone.  
  
Ginny pulled a sketchpad out from a drawer, sat down on the table, and drew a picture of Draco. The paper didn't seem big enough to accommodate his size. She smiled at that fanciful notion. He was just a wizard. Her wizard. The likeness was remarkably well done, she thought, though she refused to put a frown on his face. She'd captured his ice man stance, too, with his muscular legs braced apart and his hands settled on his hips. His hair flowed down behind his neck. Perhaps when she reached her home she could do a proper sketch of him.  
  
There was a scratching at the door, and Tabitha's head popped around. 'Should I clear away now, miss?'  
  
'Sure.' Ginny rose from the table and went to warm herself by the hearth. There was renewed chorus of shouts and crashes from below. 'What's going on?'  
  
'A fight or summat,' Tab said, piling crockery onto a tray.  
  
'Are there no women here except yourself and Bessie?'  
  
'No miss. leastways, not unless they brings 'em in.' She carried the laden tray to the door, adding matter-of-factly, 'They does that oftentimes.'  
  
'But what of you? Where do you sleep?'  
  
'Me, miss?' Tab looked surprised at the question. 'I sleep with Bessie over at the washhouse . 'ceptin' when Ben wants 'er of a night. Then I sleeps by the kitchen fire.'  
  
No room in those sleeping arrangements for an extra female.  
  
'The fires been kindled in Luke's bedchamber for ye, miss, when y'are ready to retire,' Tab said cheerfully following the thrust of the discussion, balancing the tray on her raised knee as she opened the door. 'An' there's an electric blanket on, so its all snug.' She beamed as Ginny murmured a faint thank-you, then left, banging the door behind her.  
  
'Do you prefer rum or brandy punch?' Malfoy returned in a few minutes, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. 'Bessies bringing the makings to the bedchamber so can have a nightcap.'  
  
'It's too early to sleep,' Ginny said hastily.  
  
Draco mobile eyebrows lifted. 'Its past eight, and I for one was up at three this morning.'  
  
'So was I. But I'm still not tired. You can sleep, but I'll just stay here by the fire.'  
  
'No, I don't think so,' he said in the tone he'd been using the whole day. 'You're my responsibility now, and you shall spend the night behind a locked door, with yours truly.' As if in orchestrated punctuation, renewed shouts and crashes came from downstairs, interspersed with the sound of breaking glass.  
  
Ginny shivered. It seemed as if she had no choice.  
  
'Come,' he said holding the door open.  
  
She brushed past him, conscious of her bare legs beneath his robe. She felt small and vulnerable beneath the voluminous robe, totally without the means to defend herself.  
  
His hand was in the small of her back, urging her down the passage way and around the corner, away from the sounds of the tap room. 'It's much quieter at the back of the house,' he said casually, reaching over her shoulder to open the door. 'Oh, good Bessie's left the both brandy and rum for the punch. Any preference?' He pushed her gently ahead of him into the room and closed the door.  
  
'Brandy,' Ginny said numbly, watching as he closed and locked the door with and iron key. Impassively he removed the key from the lock and slipped it into his own pocket. He could not be expecting anyone in this house, where it was obvious he was a friend and honoured guest, to break into his room at night- so the lock was by deduction, to keep her inside.  
  
'You'll find a bathroom behind the screen.' He indicated a worked screen in the corner of the room. 'While you refresh yourself, I'll prepare the punch.'  
  
The room was large and, warmed by the fire and lit. There was a deep armchair with elbow pieces by the hearth.  
  
Malfoy was busy with his punch considerately removing his attention from her, and she hurried behind the screen, grateful for the amenities it concealed.  
  
When she emerged, her companion was grating nutmeg onto the contents of a silver punch bowl. The air was sweet with the scent of warmed brandy, oranges and lemons, cinnamon and nutmeg. Involuntarily, Ginny yawned, realizing how tired she was. Her eyes darted longingly to the deep- feathered mattress on the bed. Perhaps Draco would let her sleep on the bed and he would take the chair.  
  
'Come to the fire.' His smile was inviting as he ladled punch into the goblet. 'Taste this and see if it needs anything.'  
  
It seemed pointless to resist the comforts offered in this cosy prison. Ginny sat in the big chair, curling her toes onto the gleaming brass footrest, and took the goblet. 'Plenty of nutmeg,' she pronounced after a judicious sip. 'But perhaps a touch of cloves.'  
  
'Oh damn, I forgot the cloves.' He unscrewed a twist of paper and dropped a pinch of dark ground spice into her goblet. 'Better?'  
  
She sipped and nodded, 'it doesn't taste like cloves much, though.'  
  
'Oh these are a very rare variety.' He said drinking deep from his own goblet before taking off his coat and sitting down to remove his shoes.  
  
When he started to undo his shirt, Ginny realised he was undressing for bed. right there in the middle of the room. right in front of her eyes. He was unfastening his pants. She stared mesmerised as he pushed them of his hips. Candlelight flickered on his broad bare chest, and her eye moved inexorably downward, following the trail of his six-pack, down from his navel and into the waist of his black boxers that moulded his hips and legs and clung tightly to the bulging shape. She choked on her punch, turning her head away, eyes streaming.  
  
Draco, however, appeared to not notice. He crossed the room to a deep cherry wood chest. Ginny wiped her eyes with her fingertips, but she couldn't stop herself from peeking through them, gazing at the hard-muscled shape of his butt clearly outlined in the drawers as he stood with his back to her at the armoire. He took out a black silk dressing gown and slipped it over his bare torso before disappearing behind the screen.  
  
Bloody hell! Ginny pressed a palm to one flushed cheek. He hadn't seemed to give her a thought. He'd undressed casually as if he was in a room with a prostitute. But at least he didn't remove his boxers in front of her. It was a small comfort. She took another gulp of her punch, and to her astonishment a little giggle developed in her throat. If she was totally honest, she'd enjoyed it. As fascinated as a rabbit in the eye of a cobra. What the hell was happening to her?  
  
Another wave of tiredness washed over her, but there was a tingling sensation in her body, and her toes were curling on there own accord. She felt both tired and strangely expectant. She walked over to the bed and tossed the cover aside and lay down. The air inside the room cooled considerably during the night, and Ginny woke up shivering. She tried to pull the quilt up around her shoulders, but the blanket was caught on something quite solid. When Ginny finally opened her eyes she found the cause. The blanket was tangled up in Draco long, naked legs  
  
He was sleeping next to her.  
  
She almost had a heart failure. She opened her mouth to scream. He clamped his big hand over half her face.  
  
'Don't you dare make a sound,' he ordered.  
  
She pushed his hand away. 'Get out of my bed.' The command came out in a furious whisper.  
  
He let out a weary sigh before responding to that command. 'Ginny, you happen to be sleeping in my bed. If anyone's going to be leaving, it will be you.'  
  
He sounded sleepy to her, and mean. Ginny was actually comforted by his callous attitude. She guessed he was so exhausted he only wanted to sleep, and her virtue was therefore still safe.  
  
'Fine, then I'll go sleep with Tabitha.' She announced.  
  
'No you won't' he answered. You aren't going to leave this room. If you want to, you have the option of the chair or the floor.'  
  
'Your naked,' she blurted out.  
  
'And that means, what?'  
  
She wanted to hit him. Her face turned away from him but she could still hear the laughter in his voice. 'Your embarrassing me, on purpose.'  
  
His patience was at an end. 'I am not deliberately trying to embarrass you,' he snapped. 'This is just how I sleep. You'll like it, too, once-'  
  
'Oh, God,' she said on a groan.  
  
She decided she was through with the stupid conversation. She scooted out of the side of the bed. It was too dark inside the cabin to find a blanket. Draco had kicked one of the covers of the bed, though. Ginny grabbed it wrapped it around herself.  
  
She didn't know how long she stood there glaring at his back. 'Why cant I have a separate room, its not like we're married. How hard is it to charm a door, for gods sake.'  
  
He heard every word of her whispered tirade. He held his smile when he said, 'you're a quick learner bride.'  
  
She didn't know what he was talking about. 'And what is it you think I've learned so quickly?' she asked.  
  
'Where your place is,' he drawled. 'It took m dog much longer.'  
  
Her scream of outrage filled the cabin. 'Your dog?' In one swift action she slapped him. 'I believe I'd prefer to sleep in the chair,' she said aware of her flaming cheeks.  
  
'You'll be cold by the time the fire dies down. I don't think there are enough logs around.'  
  
'I'll be warm enough,' she replied stiffly. 'If you don't mind letting me have a pillow, I will be totally comfortable.'  
  
He shrugged and tossed the pillow next to him over to her.  
  
She dragged the blanket over her and thumped the pillow behind her head, and tried to settle to sleep. But it was impossible. That curious unfocused excitement grew, together with the tingling in her stomach, which spread to her fingers and toes. But perhaps it wasn't unfocused. Perhaps it had everything to do with him, a few feet away from her. She gazed into the fire, trying to calm herself with the ruddy glow and the deep-blue undertones.  
  
But as the fire dies, the room grew colder and darker, and she was still wide awake. Wide awake and freezing. So cold that deep shudders racked her body and all she could hear was the wind whistling round the now silent inn, rattling the ill fitting panes.  
  
She looked towards the bed. Draco was a humped shape at one edge, sleeping tidily and deeply, judging by the steady rhythmic breathing. If she put the pillow down the middle of the bed, separating them, then maybe she could creep in without disturbing him and sleep on the farthest edge. She had to get warm. Even if she didn't sleep, she had to get warm if she wasn't frozen solid by morning.  
  
Softly she got up, dragging the blanket around her shoulders, her feet like blocks of ice on the hard wooden floor. She approached the bed. Barely breathing, she lifted the feather quilt and pushed her pillow into the middle. The sleeper made no movement. Still holding her breath, she climbed up high onto the mattress and slid beneath the quilt, where she lay shivering, trying desperately to keep still but unable to control the violent tremors of her body, which seemed to rock the bed.  
  
Gradually, however she began to warm up. She was acutely conscious of the form in the bed beside her, weighing down the mattress so she had to concentrate on not rolling down into the valley that separated them. But now she was hot, the heavy velvet robe twisted around beneath her in folds that took on the consistency of hard wood pressing into her flesh. Perspiration gathered between her breasts, trickled down from her armpits. And now those strange currents of restless excitement swirled more vigourously through her veins, so that she could hardly keep her feet still, and strange half formed thoughts kept drifting into her mind, then sliding out again before she could keep a hold on them.  
  
The robe had become an instrument of torture, enclosing her so she could barely breathe, setting her skin on fire. She wriggled out of it, forgetting in her desperate urgency to move only discreetly. The robe fell to the floor beside the bed, and she heaved a sigh of relief, conscious now of her body beneath the thin shift.  
  
The strange drifting thoughts increased, twining like thick lazy serpents in her head, more sensations than thoughts, and her body was suffused in a deep, dreamy languor that overlaid the restlessness without banishing it. She was conscious of her body in a way she had never known it before. Her hands moved over the shape of herself, startled to discover that her nipples were hard, lifting to her touch. Her skin was warm and tingling as she passed her hands over her stomach, feeling the sharp points of her hipbones. Her thighs parted as her hand slipped between them, feeling the moistness of her core, a strange sensitivity; and the aching restlessness rushed upon her anew.  
  
She stroked herself, slipping into a rich and sensual dreamland as the warmth crept over her and her body sank deeper into the feather bed. The twisting images in her head lost definition, and her eyes looked upon a soft pulsing landscape without form or substance that drew her onward to into the enticing glow.  
  
She dreamed of a mouth on hers, of a kiss so light and delicate, it barely stirred the air. She dreamed that her hands were moving over a warm, powerful male body and she was inhaling the scent of skin, a scent that she knew but that was still not familiar, as it didn't belong to her. She dreamed that her own skin now touched the skin of the body beside her, that fingers caressed the small of her back, touched her breasts, swept down her form in long strokes that soothed the urgent restlessness but replaced it with a clearer sense of need. She dreamed that her lips were parted with a different kiss, one that took driving possession of her mouth; she heard little feline cries in the humid sensual darkness of the deep enclosing mattress, and she dreamed that they were her own. She dreamed joyous fulfilment that seeped into every cell of her body, that made her soul sing to wonder. She dreamed that every part of her body was lost in this other shape, that her limbs were joined with his, that as she dipped into the darkness of oblivion, and surfaced again into the warm glowing light of her dream world, she was intertwined with this other body. She dreamed moments of joy again, the long slow sleepy slide into infinite pleasure, before she slipped into the dim green glowing light of the sleep filled trance.  
  
The dream was with her all night, her body moving through the strange landscape, ever new and more glorious waves of pleasure breaking over her as she adapted herself with such with such wonderful ease to the large powerful frame that both took from her in possession and gifted her with itself.  
  
And when she awoke, her eyes opened onto wasked out sunshine, and she was alone.  
  
But the dream was still with her. Its threads still twined beneath her skin, its images, blurred now, still inhabited her mind. She lay burrowed in the feather mattress, bewildered and disorientated, conscious of a sense of loss as she tried to recapture the defined images of the night.  
  
Her hands moved over her body. She was naked. But she had not gone to bed naked. The disorientation faded, but her confusion increased as the room took shape in the early morning light and her memory returned.  
  
She was naked and her skin felt different: used, marked, in some strange and frightened way. There was soreness between her legs- not bad soreness, more a kind of warmed and satisfied ache. Tentatively, she touched herself. There was stickiness, and when she drew her hand away, she saw the smear of blood on her fingers.  
  
Ginny kicked aside the covers and sat up. There was blood on the sheet and on the inside of her thighs. not much blood and it wasn't flowing anymore.  
  
It was three weeks before her next period. She lay down again, pulling the cover to her chin, and stared up at the light bulb. The ferret had raped her.  
  
But he hadn't. Nothing had happened that hadn't brought her the most exquisite pleasure. She had believed herself to be dreaming, but the evidence was overwhelming in favour of reality.  
  
And reality meant consequences. She might have conceived a child. How had it happened? How could such a thing have happened? What had happened to her that she had allowed such a thing to happen?  
  
Slowly, Ginny sat up again and took stock. She was alone in the room. The fire now burned brightly, and someone had scraped snow from the outside of the window so that a feeble ray of sunlight fell across the wooden floor.  
  
Where was Malfoy? Her dream lover? If she wasn't so devastated, Ginny could have almost laughed at herself for such a whimsical fancy. What had happened to her? What had taken her into that fantastic world?  
  
Her eyes fell on her clothes, neatly arranged over the chair by the fire. Her boots had been polished. At the end of the bed were draped her velvet robe.  
  
'Friggin hell!' she muttered. There was nothing dreamlike about this morning.  
  
The door opened. A booted foot stepped into the room. The door closed. Each sound unnaturally loud. Dreams and fantasy trances vanished into the woodwork.  
  
Ginny turned her head warily. Luke/Draco walked over to her bed. Except that it wasn't Luke. Yeah, it was the man of the night, but she didn't see the plain clothed man of yesterday.  
  
'Who are you?' Her voice came out as a whisper. The highwayman was dressed in a business suit of crisp black, contrasting with the staunch white shirt.  
  
'At this moment, Miss Weasley, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Markov, is at your service.' He bowed with a deep flourish, and as his hand moved through the ray of sunlight, the amethyst on his finger sparked fire.  
  
Ginny's voice shook with angry confusion, banishing the lingering memories of joy. 'So yesterday you were Lord Lucifer the criminal, and today you're the Minister Markov. Do you have any other identities? Or have I met all your schizophrenic self?'  
  
The slate grey eyes glittered and his voice was lightly humorous. 'All those that you need to know.'  
  
'You told me you wouldn't take advantage of me ferret!'  
  
'I did not take advantage of you.' His eyes met hers steadily.  
  
'But I might be pregnant,' she said in a low voice, accepting his flat denial by default.  
  
'No, Ginny, you don't need to be scared of that.' He sat on the bed beside her, reaching for her hand, his expression gentle, his eyes reassuring. 'There's a thing called condoms.'  
  
'I know what it is you idiot! Did you use it then?' She stared at him.  
  
He nodded. 'I wouldn't hurt you. Just believe that, I'm no murderer. yet.'  
  
'So how did it happen?'  
  
'You invited me. I have needs, you pushed me too far.'  
  
Had she? It seemed impossible. and yet she had been willing, more then willing.  
  
'I don't understand anything,' she said helplessly.  
  
'There's nothing to understand. We had sex, as men and women do. And now you will get up, dress, eat and I will take you home to your wonderful Weasels.'  
  
And it would be over. She would forget all about it. All about that tangling of limbs in limbo.  
  
Maybe. 


	5. Chapter Four

Title- The Watch  
  
Summary- This chapter Ginny goes home with Draco. Draco meets Ron and Ginny's dad. This chapter hints of what is to come later in this novel. And you, the audience are introduced to yet another one of Draco's names, lol just for confusion factors.  
  
Chapter Four  
  
You don't have to say what you did I already know, I found out from him Now there's no chance for you and me, there'll never be And don't it make you sad about it You told me you loved me, why did you leave me, Now you tell me you need me Girl I refuse you must have me confused with some other guy Your bridges were burned and now it's your turn to cry So cry me a river Cry me a river -Justin Timberlake  
  
Someone had mended her torn shirt, Tabitha, Ginny presumed. It was difficult to imagine the hard-eyed, unfriendly Bessie doing anything for her.  
  
She dressed before the fire in the deserted bedroom. Draco had said that he would wait for her in the lounge where breakfast was ready and had left her to herself. She was grateful for his unusual consideration from a man who hitherto had shown little or no recognition of a need for personal privacy. But, after a night of uhh sensuality, she'd expected him to offer clothes at the very least.  
  
Ginny felt very peculiar as she retied the leather pouch around her waist, its weight a comforting reality. She was confused, dismayed, and yet curiously excited, as if she'd crossed some boundary and entered unchartered territory. Her body thrumming and her skin felt acutely sensitive. Surely she must look different after last night. She gazed at her image in the mirror, but only her familiar face stared back at her. There was a deeper glow to her skin, perhaps; maybe her eyes seemed larger; and her hair was springing out around her face in a dark unruly halo as if it had been vigorously combed with a thousand fingers.  
  
She took up the comb on the dresser and dragged it through the tangling waves. Her hairpins were still in the lounge where she'd taken them out previously. Just yesterday!  
  
Ginny sat down abruptly, staring into the fire, trying to connect herself with the person she'd been yesterday. before she'd stolen the ferrets watch. She was different this morning, but time would distance the memories of this morning, but time would distance the memories of that fantastic dream. She would return to her flat at Hyde Park, to the drear poky lodgings above the Chinese takeaway shop, to her fathers self-obsessed world of the mind, to the daily struggle to maintain some sense of pride as she negotiated with the pawn shop owner and mended their clothes and went out on the streets to risk her neck whenever the CV called her.  
  
She jumped as the door suddenly banged open to admit Bessie, who stood with arms folded, leaning against the doorjamb. 'There's some of us 'as work to do,' she announced. 'Can't lie abed all day like some bleedin' lady muck. You goin' to get yer breakfast, or shall it be cleared away?'  
  
Ginny stood up and fixed Bessie with a cold stare. 'If you'd tell me what my shot is, I'll pay it directly.'  
  
Bessie raised an eyebrow. 'Hoity-toity! I don't want yer money. Luke takes care of us. And you'd best make 'aste. He's got work of 'is own to do today.'  
  
'If he had something to say to me, he can come and say it himself,' Ginny declared. 'I'll join him in five minutes. Perhaps you'd like to pass that on.'  
  
The air stilled as she stared fixedly at the woman with all the hauteur of Miss Ginny Weasley of the Burrow, with blue blood lines ranging to the beginning of time. Bessie stared back and then sniffed, spun on her heel, and marched out, banging the door behind her.  
  
With a little smile Ginny returned to her dressing arranging the repaired shirt. She felt much better after that little show of assertion. Gathering up her cloak, and leaving her hair loose around her shoulders, she made her way to the lounge.  
  
The passage was chilly, and there was a reek of stale beer and smoke wafting up the stairs from the taproom. She could hear the thumping and dragging of furniture, a splash and slop of water as a bucket was emptied over the dirty flagstones, the thunder of a full barrel being rolled over the cobbles in the yard outside. The Mermaids Tavern was preparing for a new day.  
  
At the door to the lounge, she unconsciously squared her shoulders before twisting the knob. The ferret was sitting at the same round table addressing a platter of sirloin, Again she had a shock as she took in his costume, the strong lines of his face, the broadness of his brow, accentuated by his pale white blonde hair, his eyes somehow more piercing, their grey deeper, darker.  
  
He rose with a courteous bow as she entered. 'My dear Miss Weasley, I trust you past a pleasant night.'  
  
The mischievous undercurrent to the formal pleasantry took her breath away, and she was momentary speechless. Then she saw the laughter in his eyes, the twitch of his firm mouth, and the air of complicit enjoyment.  
  
'Phantasmagorical, I believe.'  
  
Something- a touch of discomfort- flickered across his eyes and then was gone. 'Come to the table Weasel.' He moved to draw a chair out for her. As she sat down, he swept the loose mass of fiery hair from her neck and bent to kiss her nape.  
  
Ginny shivered; her skin prickled beneath the warm pressure of his lips and the cool rustle of his breath. No, she thought, she was not at all the same person who'd entered this room yesterday. Her head dropped beneath the pressure of his mouth and she yielded to the delicious sensation, her body responding as if to a familiar stimulus. only her mind didn't recognize it in the same way. Her mind had not been in her body during the long, joyous hours of the night, and only her flesh knew this for what it was.  
  
How had it happened? How could she have been both waking and sleeping through such a pivotal experience?  
  
But she could find no answer. It had happened, and her body now was telling her it wanted to happen again, only this time with the participation of her mind.  
  
As he straightened, she jerked her head up abruptly shaking her hair loosely over her shoulders again. 'What turns Lord Luke into Minister Vladimir?' she asked with an assumption of carelessness, wondering if he was aware of her reaction to that caress. One glance at his smiling expression told her the answer.  
  
'Business,' he said, returning to his own seat. 'I have different kinds of business to deal with and so different roles.' He passed her a slice of oven-warm bread, as white and fragrant as any to be found in the most exclusive establishments. 'Coffee?'  
  
'Thank you.' She took the slice and watched as he poured coffee from a pewter pot into a deep china mug. 'And what business is it that requires the role and costume of a minister?'  
  
'Ministry business, I should imagine,' he said dryly, lifting the lid on a chafing dish. 'Bacon, Miss Weasley?'  
  
'I beg your pardon, I didn't mean to pry.' Ginny's mouth thinned at this implicit reproof. 'No, thankyou.'  
  
'Mushrooms, then?' he inquired with a solicitous air, gesturing to another dish. 'Or perhaps a slice of ham? I'm sure Bessie would prepare you eggs if you want?'  
  
'I doubt that Bessie would give me the shavings of her fingernails,' Ginny declared with vigorous vulgarity, digging the spoon into the platter of mushrooms.  
  
Minister Vlad- she decided to call Draco in his present disguise- merely laughed and sat back, one hand curled around a mug. 'She's not one for polite conversation.'  
  
'She's so. rude!' Ginny snapped, buttering her bread. 'And I would prefer to pay for my own bread and food, Vlad.'  
  
Her companion frowned and said in the tone she'd heard so often since the previous day, 'No, I don't think so.'  
  
'What do you mean, you don't think so?' she demanded in irritation. 'That is what I wish to do and I intend to do it. So perhaps you would inform Bessie of that fact, since she would not hear it from me.' She speared a forkful of mushrooms and carried it into her mouth.  
  
'No, she wouldn't hear it from you,' he agreed. 'You see, she is not used to taking orders from anyone but me. And she's well aware that you are my guest. I hope you found your stay hear well met.' He added gently. 'I should be very sorry to think so after we've had such a pleasant time together.'  
  
Ginny's cheeks warmed. Was he saying that he was paying for sex? So he saw her for a slut?  
  
And goddamn, why shouldn't he? She behaved like one.  
  
Abruptly, she pushed her chair back and stood up. 'Goodbye Malfoy, and I trust Minister Vladimir's business will prosper.' She stalked to the door, flung it wide, and allowed it to bang shut as she left.  
  
Her feet flew down the stairs, and she burst into the bitterly cold sunshine, breathing deeply, drawing the icy air into her lungs, enjoying the sharp, and cleansing pain. Everything was white and pristine under its fresh carpet of snow; the usual filth and squalor of the narrow streets buried a foot deep. The sky was a brilliant blue, and her boots crunched across the snow as she turned to the side of the inn in search of the stable yard. They would presumably have some kind of vehicle for hire that would carry her back to London.  
  
The only vehicle in the yard however was a limousine. Ben and the gangly lad were unloading barrels. Ben glanced up at Ginny and then carried on with his work as if she wasn't there. She stood awkwardly, looking around. The stable buildings were all closed up, and she knew that one roan, at least- the 'Lord Lucifer's' roan- was stabled within. Maybe, if they didn't have a carriage or gig she could hire, they would have a riding horse. She wasn't dressed for riding, but that wasn't the least of her worries.  
  
She walked up to the dray. 'I wish to hire a taxi or a car, if that's all you have available.'  
  
'Don't 'ave nuthin' like that.' He was less rude then Bessie, but nonetheless unhelpful.  
  
Ginny slipped her hand into the slit in her skirt, feeling for her pouch. Maybe a little gold could persuade Ben to change his mind. She shivered, realizing for the first time she had abandoned her coat in the ferrets lounge. It was bloody annoying. Apart from the fact that she would freeze to death without them, they were her only decent outer garments, essential to her appearance, as a rich young lady, and she couldn't afford to replace them. But the prospect of trailing foolishly back to the lounge after such an exit was insupportable.  
  
'Bloody hell!' she exclaimed stamping her foot in the snow in frustration.  
  
'Forgot something, Miss Weasley?'  
  
Draco's suave tones came from the back door of the inn. He stood in the doorway, a dark velvet cloak lined in turquoise silk hanging from his shoulders, a black tricorn tucked beneath his arm. Over his other arm he carried Ginny's coat.  
  
'I'm afraid you will catch a cold if you persist in running around in just that flimsy skirt and top,' he said, coming toward her, shaking his head in reproof. 'It's really not at all sensible, you know.'  
  
Ginny ground her teeth as he carefully placed her cloak around her shoulders and fastened the clasp at the neck.  
  
'For Voldemort's sake, I can do it!' Ginny jerked her hand away and pulled away from his hold. 'I want to hire cab to take me home, but the innkeeper says they don't have anything. I suppose they might find a car on your authority,' she added bitterly, drawing in the hood of her cloak over her hair. 'But if it's too hard for your simple mind, I can always walk.'  
  
Draco sighed. 'You are the most obstinate and perverse girl, I've ever met, but what else can I expect from a Weasley. I said I would take you home this morning, and I will take you home.'  
  
'I don't want to be in your debt anymore! I'm not for sale, dammit!' To her further fury she could hear tears in her voice, and even the knowledge that they were tears of anger rather than hurt didn't make the weakness easier to bear. She turned away from him with a rough gesture as if she would push him away.  
  
'You're not in debt to me, Ginny. If anything, I'm in your debt.' He laid an arresting hand on her arm. 'I thought I told you yesterday that you were given to rude language and loud freaking out spasms, and I have to tell you the truth, there starting to annoy me a bit, not to mention insulting in the present instance. And who said anything about buying you, I would doubt anyone would want to?'  
  
'You want the Mercedes, Luke?' Ben called before Ginny could reply to Draco exasperated question. 'Fredy'll have it in a trice.'  
  
'Thanks Ben.'  
  
'So they do have a car,' Ginny exclaimed. 'I knew it.'  
  
'Yes, well its not for hire,' Malfoy said. 'It belongs to me.'  
  
'Trust, you're a Malfoy through and through.'  
  
'I'm no more a common Malfoy, then you are a common Weasley, how many other Weasley's lie?'  
  
She was prevented from responding, as Freddy had returned with a silver car.  
  
''Ere yare, Lord Luke. Shiny in't it? I waxed 'em for an hour last even.' The boy beamed proudly.  
  
Draco opened the back door for Ginny, 'permit me to help you inside,' he said gallantly.  
  
Ginny could see no sensible alternative, although pride was a hard nut to swallow. She climbed into the car, disdaining the proffered assistance.  
  
Draco followed her with an agile leap. 'Let's go.' The boy obeyed, and the car lurched forward.  
  
Ginny huddled into her cloak, covertly watching her companions profile as he looked out the window. She was disinclined for conversation, and, fortunately, Malfoy seemed content with his own thoughts until they'd crossed London Bridge and were once again in streets familiar to her.  
  
Draco spoke as they drove up Gracechurch Street. 'I'll need your help now, Miss Weasley. We came over London Bridge, because I remembered Shoreditch, but I have no idea where to go from here.'  
  
'If you could take me to Aldgate, I can find my way from there,' Ginny said. Regardless of how close they had been the previous night, Ginny didn't want him to see the poverty of her home. After all Draco lived in luxury, that was entitled to all Malfoy's, despite that he was a wanted man.  
  
'No, I don't think so,' he said, 'I'll take you up to your door.'  
  
'And if I choose not to tell you where I live?'  
  
He cut her a sidelong look that to her chagrin was a brimful of amusement. 'Then I should be obliged to take it into my own hands to ensure your compliance.'  
  
Ginny wondered vaguely what such steps would entail. Whatever it was, she didn't think she would enjoy it. She told her self firmly, 'there was no need to be ashamed of being who you are.' She sat up with an air of determination. 'Fine, but you'll have to stop at Quaker Street. I have to redeem some things.'  
  
'Of course, Princess Weasel,' he said with mock politeness, 'Any where else?'  
  
She directed him through the maze of East End streets, admiring his skill and the way he appeared oblivious to the stares and catcalls that greeted a car, which was rarely seen in this area. Ragged children huddled on street corners, beggars parading their mutilations, coming dangerously close to the car. A young woman darted out in front of the car, clutching a baby to her breast. She raised her haggard eyes in pitiful appeal and thrust out her hand, claw like, over the side of the carriage as they slowed and swerved to avoid a tribe of mangy, starving dogs in pursuit of a squalling cat.  
  
Draco barely looked at her, but he reached into his pocket and tossed her a coin. She fell back, scrabbling as it tumbled into the cobbles. 'She'll only spend it on alcohol,' he said with cold indifference that made Ginny wince, although she understood the helplessness that lay behind it.  
  
'Maybe,' she said. 'But it might make her more patient with her child.'  
  
'And when she's dead, because of the alcohol in her liver, what happens to the child?' The same detachment was in his voice, but Ginny had the feeling that it was a mask for his true feelings. She'd learned her own ways of dealing with the horrors that lived and breathed on these streets, and she knew that if one didn't cultivate a certain detachment, you would be driven mad.  
  
She made no answer to the rhetorical question, merely directed him to Quaker Street. He drew up outside the sign of three golden balls.  
  
'I'll go in on my own,' Ginny protested. 'I'm use to it.'  
  
The Malfoy ignored this, merely jumped out of the car and held the door open for her.  
  
Ginny shrugged and stepped down, aware of the curious eyes at windows, their less inhibited neighbours staring openly out of their doors at the extraordinary sight of The Creeveys lodger driving in the elegant Mercedes Bens, with an exquisite male sample. Ron would find out about this, who knows if he would respond to it. He notices nothing, outside Harry, she thought bitterly. Her companion opened the door, the bell tinkling merrily. He held it for her, and she stepped into the crowded, dark, and frowsty interior, where the smell of old clothes and dust and mould dominated.  
  
'Come fer yer pa's books, then?' An elderly man, so short his head barely topped the counter, blinked into the dimness. 'Thought you wasn't comin' to pay yer instalment this week. Due yesterday ye were. Lucky I didn't sell 'em on ye.'  
  
'Oh, come on Jebediah. Who around here would buy 'Why it was the founders of Hogwarts as opposed to Muggle's featured in Plato's Republic' and two volumes of 'Muggle interaction in Greek Mythology'?' Ginny said dismissively, reaching into her skirt for the pouch, She extracted several galleons and dropped them onto the counter.  
  
'And two knuts' interest,' Ginny said, scooping the coins off the counter. 'Due yesterday.'  
  
'There's no interest if I redeem them,' Ginny declared. 'So don't your tricks on me.'  
  
Jebediah gave her a toothless grin and stared over he shoulder at the tall elegant figure of her companion. 'I see ye've got yerself a gennelman friend, then. Quite the gent 'e looks.'  
  
Ginny flushed angrily. 'Get me the books, Jebediah.'  
  
'All right, all right.' He shuffled off in his carpet slippers into the dark recesses of the noisome shop, returning after a minute with three leather-bound, gilt-edged volumes. 'Doin' ye a favour, I am, takin' these fer good money,' he asserted. 'Much good they'd do me if'n ye didn't come fer 'em'  
  
'Exactly what I said,' Ginny agreed serenely, opening the volumes and clapping them together. A cloud of dust filled the dank air. 'But don't think I'm not grateful, you old rogue.' She dropped another knut on the counter. 'That's just to show my appreciation.'  
  
'Come into a fortune 'ave ye?' He picked up the coin and bit it to test the metal, his shrew eyes returning to the silent figure of Draco. 'A fortune, eh? Well, who can blame ye when yer face is all the fortune ye've got.'  
  
Ginny swung on her heel and made for the door, clutching her fathers books. There was no hope of explaining the true situation to Jebediah, who only saw what he saw. And what he saw was what everyone would see, she knew. Yet another reason for not wanting Draco to take her to her door.  
  
'How often do you have to go through that?' Draco inquired, opening the car door for her. 'He seemed a most encroaching, uhhh gentleman.'  
  
'Too often, and he is,' she responded, examining the books carefully. 'He's a rogue and I'm always afraid he might decided he had a use for the pages and tear them out. Dad worries so much whenever a book is missing from his library. I'd hate to know how he would react if they came back damages.'  
  
'Does Jebediah hold anything else of yours?' Draco opened the door for himself.  
  
'Some jewellery. a few pieces that belonged to my mother,' Ginny said with a shrug. 'So long as I pay the weekly instalments, he'll keep them. Although I can't imagine, when I'll be able to wear them again.'  
  
It was said without self-pit, Draco noticed, but he also heard the under- lying bitterness. 'One day, you'll get your revenge.'  
  
Ginny laughed without humour. 'And pigs fly.'  
  
'You can dream,' he returned neutrally.  
  
'Yeah, I can dream,' she agreed. 'Turn right at the end.'  
  
They drew up at a narrow, crooked house in a narrow crooked lane, the overhanging eaves on either side almost touching to form a roof across the street below. A grimy window on the ground floor exhibited the wares of the chandler. Above a bow window jutted into the alley.  
  
'Thanks for escorting me,' Ginny said formally, jumping down before he could come to her assistance. 'I hope you can find your own way back.'  
  
'Yesterday I said I was going to drop you off to the centre of your family,' Draco said with a bland smile. 'I haven't changed my mind. I look forward to meeting your father. and Ron.'  
  
'Your car?' Ginny pointed out without much hope. Why on earth would he want to pursue this?  
  
'I'm sure Fred can look after it.' As he spoke the door opened, Joan Creeveys eldest son appeared in the doorway, staring with wide-eyed astonishment at his mother's lodger in astonishment.  
  
'Come inside then.' Ginny directed with a resigned sigh. She went ahead of him into the shop, wondering what frame of mind her father would be in and if Ron was with Harry. Both Weasley men could be charming in some circumstances, and at others so irascible, it was impossible to remain in the same room as them.  
  
'Well, I never. Just where have you been, Miss Weasley? Out of my mind with worry,' A short round lady bustled out from the back of the shop. More pointedly the woman was Colin's younger sister, Joan. 'Your pa's been creatin' something chronic. He would 'ave it somethin' had happened to you, although I told him you would have taken shelter from the storm, and.' Her voice died as she took in Ginny's companion. 'Well I never.'  
  
'This is ummm' Ginny was unsure of what to call him at this moment, he obviously did not want to give away his true identity, or Joan would call the Ministry and have him arrested.  
  
'Minister Vladimir, at your service.' Draco filled in.  
  
'He's come to visit Papa. This way, sir.' Ginny said hastily, without waiting for a further word from the astounded landlady, she swept up a narrow flight of stairs at the rear of the shop, with Draco at her heels.  
  
Draco inclined his head in a slight bow as he passed Joan. The woman seemed relatively well disposed toward her lodger, he thought, and the shop, while hardly affluent, had a prosperous air at odds with the grimness of the surrounding streets.  
  
It wasn't the depths of poverty, but Ginny was as out of place as a diamond midst coal.  
  
He followed her lithe figure up the creaking, rickety wooden stairs, her hair glowing a burnished copper in the light thrown by a candle in a wall sconce illuminating the tight spiral stairway. At the head of the stairs she paused before a closed doorway, turning toward him as he came up to join her on the narrow landing. The golden eyes were lambent in the dimness, her full lips slightly parted as if she were about to say something. A warm pink tinged the high cheekbones, highlighting the creamy translucence of her complexion.  
  
A veritable diamond- and if she would listen to him, then she would have a setting worthy of her.  
  
Smiling, he cupped her chin in his hand, but she pulled away sharply.  
  
'You could ruin my reputation, or whatever's left of it!' she hissed in whispered outrage. 'Its bad enough that I've been absent all-night and then appear with you in the morning. The gossip will be all over the neighbourhood, but there's no need to spell it out for them.'  
  
He drew back, and looked apologetic, although his tone was more ironical then conciliatory. 'Forgive me, now may I see your father?  
  
Ginny opened the door and stepped swiftly into the room. 'Papa, I have a visitor.'  
  
Draco came in and closed the door behind him. The room was small and ill furnished, lit with small lamps, a small coal fire spluttering in the hearth. A narrow bed with a patchwork quilt stood against one wall. The bow window looked out onto the street, and sitting at a desk set in the window was a thin man with a mane of white hair and the same tawny gold eyes as his daughter. He wore an old fashioned, ash grey coat, his shirt was collarless, and a coarse horse blanket was draped over his shoulders. His features were well defined beneath a bony, prominent brow, but he bore an air of distraction as he turned towards the door, frowning at the new arrivals.  
  
'Ginny, child, where have you been? I do believe you weren't here all night.'  
  
'No, Papa, I was caught in the storm,' Ginny said, hurrying across the room, bending to kiss him. 'Minister Vlad was so kind as to bring me home.' She gestured to her escort, who stepped forward and shook the older man's hand.  
  
'An honour, sir.'  
  
Arthur Weasley's eyes suddenly and disconcertingly sharpened. 'And have you got to do with my daughter? I have left the Ministry.'  
  
'Yes, yet your work still stands high in degree,' Draco said with a disarming smile. 'Your daughter found herself in difficulty when the storm hit. I simply helped her home. She hasn't been hurt.' His eyes flickered toward Ginny, standing silent beside her father.  
  
'Minister Vladimir was the epitome of kindness,' she said quietly. 'And as you see, I am safe and sound. I've redeemed your Plato and Greek Mythology.' She placed the books on the table.  
  
'Ah,' her father said, instantly distracted from whatever paternal anxieties had momentarily pierced his absorption. 'I have been at my wit's end without the Mythology. There's a reference I've been trying to chase up for this article.'  
  
His voice faded to a murmur as he began to leaf through the volume. 'I believe it's in the sixth book. Ah, yes, here we are. Forgive me, sir. but this is urgent. My publishers await this article eagerly. Ginny will show you hospitality here. Oh, and Ginny, Ron is with Harry to work on his new art piece, he said not to wait up for him tonight.' He gestured vaguely with a thin but elegant hand before picking up his quill from the inkstand.  
  
Draco accepted this as a dismissal and stepped back. He looked around the room again. The smell of boiling pudding wafted from below, and he saw the cracks in the walls, the broken leg of two straight backed chairs at the square table in the centre of the room, the cushion less sofa beside the fireplace, the cracked and grimy windowpanes. And he realized that the warmth of the fire was superficial, doing little to combat the bone-deep chill in the cheerless room.  
  
Ginny had no illusions about her present lodging and met his returning gaze with a challenging defiance. He'd insisted on coming up, but she'd tolerate no pity from him.  
  
Draco made no comment, however and walked to the door. 'I'll leave you now. I have to be somewhere at noon.'  
  
So simple, so casual, so final. But what else had she expected? What else had she wanted?  
  
'I'll accompany you to the car,' Ginny said formally.  
  
'No, its alright, there's no point,' he returned. 'I can find my own way out.'  
  
'I'm sure you can. Nevertheless, I am your hostess, whilst you are here, despite where I live.'  
  
Draco made no answer to this challenging statement, merely walked ahead of her down the narrow stair case through the shop and out into the street.  
  
'Goodbye.' Ginny gave him her hand. 'I should thank you, I imagine, but I'm at a loos to know what for, since you would have had no need to escort me home if you hadn't carried me off to Putney in the first place.'  
  
'I'm not asking for a thankyou,' he said solemnly, shaking her hand. 'On the contrary, I extend my own.' A raised eyebrow and a half smile left her in no doubt as to his meaning, but she wouldn't respond in kind, merely stepping back out of the road, waiting like a patient and polite hostess for him to depart.  
  
The car bowled away down the narrow lane, and Ginny turned back to go indoor. Life had been boring before; now its bleakness mad her sadder. For a few amazing hours she'd participated in a shared dream, but it was over now. She had the memories, but in her present misery she knew they would torment her, rather then soothe. 


	6. Chapter Five

Chapter Five  
  
Lucius Malfoy advanced through the crowded antechamber at the Ministry's restaurant, pausing to greet acquaintances, bowing low to the influential, a word of greeting and compliment always ready to his lips as he drew closer to the salon where the Minister of Magic was holding his levee.  
  
He approached the circle of intimates gathered around the Minister. The Vice Minister of Magic was standing to one side, glowering and tapping one foot in obvious boredom. He loathed the Ministry ceremonies that the Minister conducted with rigorous and punctual order, and his expression brightened when he saw the Minister of Defence Against the Dark Arts.  
  
'Ah, Lucius, come to pay your respects, eh?' He offered his hand. 'Damnable waste of a morning this, don't you think?'  
  
Lucius smiled at the corpulent young man whose face shone red beneath the makeup he elaborately powdered on. 'When he earns you the majority of votes, Constantine, you will be able to take his position as Minister of Magic,' he said in soothing tones.  
  
'Yes, and you'll all be damned sure that it'll end these stupid levees,' the Minister declared morosely, raising his glasses to examine the assembled company.  
  
Accepting this withdrawal of attention as dismissal, the Minister of Defence Against the Dark Arts bowed low, and took his leave of the Vice Minister, and approached the circle around the Minister, hoping to catch the man's eye.  
  
Cornelius was listening to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Minister's head was courteously inclined to one side to catch the elderly wizard's wheezing tones. 'Yes, I agree,' The Minister of Magic murmured every now and then.  
  
Lucius drew closer until he was standing just behind Fudge. When Fudge raised his head, he would be bound to see him.  
  
The Foreign Affairs Minister's discourse died in a fit of coughing. He buried his face in a handkerchief, and the King considerately looked away and caught the slate-grey eyes of the foreign affairs son in law. Lucius. 'Malfoy, beautiful morning, what.what?'  
  
'Yes, it is.' Lucius bowed low. 'We must be grateful, yesterday's blizzard was no worse.'  
  
'Oh my daughters were delighted with the snow,' the Minister said genially. 'They're all for skating on the lake. plaguing their mother for permission.' A fond parent, he chuckled indulgently. 'And how's Narcissa, recovered from her sickness?'  
  
'Yes, she's having tea with Mrs Fudge today, I believe.'  
  
'And the child. thriving, I trust?'  
  
'Yes, sir.'  
  
The Minister smiled a dismissal and Lucius stepped backward. He then offered his father in law a brief and curt good morning. The man warranted no further attention. He was an old fool and had served his purpose. Once the marriage with the mans daughter was celebrated, Lucius was assured of a place in inner Ministry circles and had no further use for his father in law's connections.  
  
He melted into the throng, aware of eyes, some speculative, some envious, that had watched his audience with the Minister of Magic, gauging its length and intimacy. It had been a very personal conversation, one that marked the Minister of Defence Against the Dark Art's as his favourite Minister.  
  
Lucius moved into a window embrasure and discreetly dabbed his forehead. It was hot in the room and his scalp itched. He adjusted the frills of his lace shirt and regarded Vice Minister still holding his place across the room. It was no secret that the Vice Minister cause the Minister of Magic endless heartache with his intransigence and debauchery, but at least the Minister had a successor that was male. An unsatisfactory male successor was better than a second round, mewling, and female brat.  
  
An unconscious frown drew his thin eyebrows together, and one hand moved involuntarily to the small pocket in his waistcoat. His fingers brushed the silk pouch, feeling the shape of the tiny ring it contained. One of the three Malfoy rings. It had been slipped on his finger at birth- his to keep in trust for his own son, but that son had betrayed him.  
  
Narcissa would have to do better the third time round. if he could bring himself to cover her pallid, stick body again. The woman revolted him. And even more so since the birth. She whimpered and snivelled whenever he came near her. He knew from the doctors that she hadn't healed properly after the birth, and was plagued with intermittent bleeding, but offcourse she was far too nice in her personality to mention such a thing to her husband, who was presumably expected to divine from the air whether she was in a fit state to receive his advances. 


	7. Chapter 6 completed version

Chapter Five  
  
Lucius Malfoy advanced through the crowded antechamber at the Ministry's restaurant, pausing to greet acquaintances, bowing low to the influential, a word of greeting and compliment always ready to his lips as he drew closer to the salon where the Minister of Magic was holding his levee.  
  
He approached the circle of intimates gathered around the Minister. The Vice Minister of Magic was standing to one side, glowering and tapping one foot in obvious boredom. He loathed the Ministry ceremonies that the Minister conducted with rigorous and punctual order, and his expression brightened when he saw the Minister of Defence Against the Dark Arts.  
  
'Ah, Lucius, come to pay your respects, eh?' He offered his hand. 'Damnable waste of a morning this, don't you think?'  
  
Lucius smiled at the corpulent young man whose face shone red beneath the makeup he elaborately powdered on. 'When he earns you the majority of votes, Constantine, you will be able to take his position as Minister of Magic,' he said in soothing tones.  
  
'Yes, and you'll all be damned sure that it'll end these stupid levees,' the Minister declared morosely, raising his glasses to examine the assembled company.  
  
Accepting this withdrawal of attention as dismissal, the Minister of Defence Against the Dark Arts bowed low, and took his leave of the Vice Minister, and approached the circle around the Minister, hoping to catch the man's eye.  
  
Cornelius was listening to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Minister's head was courteously inclined to one side to catch the elderly wizard's wheezing tones. 'Yes, I agree,' The Minister of Magic murmured every now and then.  
  
Lucius drew closer until he was standing just behind Fudge. When Fudge raised his head, he would be bound to see him.  
  
The Foreign Affairs Minister's discourse died in a fit of coughing. He buried his face in a handkerchief, and the King considerately looked away and caught the slate-grey eyes of the foreign affairs son in law. Lucius. 'Malfoy, beautiful morning, what.what?'  
  
'Yes, it is.' Lucius bowed low. 'We must be grateful, yesterday's blizzard was no worse.'  
  
'Oh my daughters were delighted with the snow,' the Minister said genially. 'They're all for skating on the lake. plaguing their mother for permission.' A fond parent, he chuckled indulgently. 'And how's Narcissa, recovered from her sickness?'  
  
'Yes, she's having tea with Mrs Fudge today, I believe.'  
  
'And the child. thriving, I trust?'  
  
'Yes, sir.'  
  
The Minister smiled a dismissal and Lucius stepped backward. He then offered his father in law a brief and curt good morning. The man warranted no further attention. He was an old fool and had served his purpose. Once the marriage with the mans daughter was celebrated, Lucius was assured of a place in inner Ministry circles and had no further use for his father in law's connections.  
  
He melted into the throng, aware of eyes, some speculative, some envious, that had watched his audience with the Minister of Magic, gauging its length and intimacy. It had been a very personal conversation, one that marked the Minister of Defence Against the Dark Art's as his favourite Minister.  
  
Lucius moved into a window embrasure and discreetly dabbed his forehead. It was hot in the room and his scalp itched. He adjusted the frills of his lace shirt and regarded Vice Minister still holding his place across the room. It was no secret that the Vice Minister cause the Minister of Magic endless heartache with his intransigence and debauchery, but at least the Minister had a successor that was male. An unsatisfactory male successor was better than a second round, mewling, and female brat.  
  
An unconscious frown drew his thin eyebrows together, and one hand moved involuntarily to the small pocket in his waistcoat. His fingers brushed the silk pouch, feeling the shape of the tiny ring it contained. One of the three Malfoy rings. It had been slipped on his finger at birth- his to keep in trust for his own son, but that son had betrayed him.  
  
Narcissa would have to do better the third time round. if he could bring himself to cover her pallid, stick body again. The woman revolted him. And even more so since the birth. She whimpered and snivelled whenever he came near her. He knew from the doctors that she hadn't healed properly after the birth, and was plagued with intermittent bleeding, but offcourse she was far too nice in her personality to mention such a thing to her husband, who was presumably expected to divine from the air whether she was in a fit state to receive his advances.  
  
He debated whom he should approach next. The Minister of Wild Magic would probably require development. He had Fudge's ear when it came to patronage.  
  
As he moved to the window, his eye caught that of a tall, elegant man in a turquoise velvet robe, standing in the doorway to the hall.  
  
There was something about the man that raised Lucius's hackles. Something about the way he stood so negligently surveying the room as if no one in it could have the power to engage his interest. Lucius had seen Minister Vladimir Shickovavich around in the last few months, an ever-present face but one who strangely never attempted to attract the attention of the Minister of Magic. He had his own friends among the most reckless and extravagant sets and was known to drink deep and play high at the casinos and to have an eye for the ladies that was generally reciprocated. But he was something of an enigma. It was generally believed that he'd lived in Transylvania until his arrival in London some months before, but no one seemed to know anything else about him. But he was personable, well bred, and apparently wealthy enough to live as high as he pleased, and that was all that counted.  
  
Minister Vlad continued to hold his eye, and Lucius inclined his head in a small bow of acknowledgement that was immediately returned with a flickering smile. Lucius turned away, frowning. There was a quality to that smile that disturbed him. It had complicity to it, as if it held some sort of secret that he believed Lucius shared. Which was patently absurd, since, apart from a brief introduction, he didn't know the man from Salazar Slytherin.  
  
Suddenly bored of his attendance in the hot room, the Minister of Defence Against the Dark Arts made his way to the double doors, which led to the hall. To his annoyance he found Minister Vlad ahead of him, standing in the doorway almost barring his exit.  
  
'Good Morning, Malfoy.'  
  
'To you as well, Vladimir.' Impatiently, Lucius moved to step around his accoster, but somehow the Minister seemed to still be in his way.  
  
'I hope Mrs. Malfoy is well,' Vladimir inquired, 'and your daughter, of course.'  
  
That smile flickered again over the well-shaped mouth, but the slate-grey eyes remained impassive, resting on the other man's face. 'Even daughters ensure the continuation of one's line. and it's to be assumed that where daughters lead, sons will follow.'  
  
His smile broadened and he bowed again before Lucius could find a suitable response. 'Excuse me, I see Alexi Hindley trying to catch my attention.' And he strolled off, leaving the Minister scowling in annoyance, wondering why he felt as if the man had been mocking him and why he'd been left without a word himself.  
  
His exit was now clear, the Minister returned to the chamber outside. Blaise, Lady Les Sable stood by the window in a circle of attentive men. She plied her fan vigorously, and her high, trilling laugh could be heard clearly above the chatter that sounded like a rookery of starlings. The air overheated by the fires and myriad candles, was heavy with perfume, overlaying the ripe odour of stale bodies, less then immaculate clothes, and the richness of brocade, velvet and silks stiffened with use.  
  
Lucius crossed the chamber and joined the circle around Lady Les Sable. She smiled at him over her fan, her heavily rouged cheeks startling against the white of her high piled coiffure, her china-blue eyes round beneath the thin arch of her plucked eyebrows. He noticed that she was wearing the emerald earrings he had given to her after their last meeting. He didn't recognize the silver fillet she wore in her hair and wondered sourly which of the incomparable beauty's other admirers had been responsible for that. Maybe even the half senile Victor Les Sable.  
  
The ancient and unsavoury pureblood, a footman in attendance, was sitting in a bath chair by the fire, nodding to himself and muttering, his wig askew, his cloths spotted. It was common knowledge that he turned a blind eye to his wife's lovers and opened his wallet wide for her so long as she accommodated himself when he wanted her to. But the Venision Institute had educated Blaise, and there was hardly anything she wouldn't do in sex if the price were right.  
  
She was still bloody desirable, through, Lucius thought, his loins were stirring as his gaze rested on her ripe breasts, two powdered globes swelling from her décolletage. Her nipples would be rouged, he knew, and it would take but a fingertip to expose them above the lace edging.  
  
'Minister, you're drooling like a starved wolf,' trilled Lady Les Sables, tapping his wrists playfully with her fan. 'I believe this Minister would like a bite.' She brushed the back of her hand carelessly over her breasts and laughed around the circle all of whom joined in, eager to participate in the mockery.  
  
Lucius flushed but hid his discomfort. 'Of course, my lady when such lush fruit is on offer, a man must be but half a man to refuse the invitation.'  
  
'But only!' Laughing, the lady linked her arm through his. 'It is so hot in here. You may escort me to my limo before I melt.'  
  
'Before the paint runs,' murmured a gentleman sotto voce as the two moved off, the lady's flowing silk saqque billowing after her.  
  
'Wicked, Carson!' The comment was accompanied by a rich and merry laugh.  
  
Peter Carson turned, grinning. 'But irresistible, Vladamir.'  
  
'You're correct there.' Draco watched Blaise and his father disappear into the farther chamber. 'She's like fire.'  
  
'Without a doubt,' his friend agreed. 'But I'd be careful about reaching into that pocket, myself. It's said she had to have a dose of disease not so long ago.'  
  
'Amazing!' Vladamir chided mockingly. 'One of those high impure's with a disease? Hardly believable.'  
  
'I'd lay it on the fact that Malfoy gave it to her,' Peter said with his lazy grin. 'The old goat's been riddled with it for years.'  
  
'A price to pay for a title and fortune, even for such a one as Blaise,' Draco observed, raising his head to examine the doting husband, still nodding beside the fire, apparently unaware of his wife's departure.  
  
'Life's short, my friend, best to make it as sweet as possible,' Peter said easily. 'On which stake, do you play at Lady Ovular's tonight? Apparently the stakes are over 5000 galleons at the pharo's table.'  
  
'Worth the visit then,' Draco observed. 'Yes you can see me there then.' He bowed and moved off in the wake of Lucius and Blaise.  
  
Lucius still physically resembled his father all those years ago. His physique was still willowy, his countenance smooth, his eyes clear, with that ingenious glow that had deceived many. Only his son could see the flicker of calculation beneath the openness of his expression, the occasional cruel twist to the wide full mouth. He could see them because he knew them. He knew his father almost as well as he knew himself. It was a knowledge that ran with the blood in his veins. The were like two sides of a solitaire card, only the reverse image was strangely distorted.  
  
Draco moved aside into an alcove from where he could watch his father relatively unobserved and muttered an incantation, which rendered him invisible. He often found himself doing this even when it would serve no useful purpose. It was a form of an obsession, watching his fathers lips move, watching the way he walked, smiled, and exerted his charm. Occasionally Draco could see a resemblance to himself in the way Lucius tilted his head, the upward sweep of his lashed, and always in the slate- grey eyes that were his own. But whenever he saw that resemblance, he would be swept with a crimson tide of rage so powerful it make his hands shake and brought black spots dancing before his eyes.  
  
In the dark reaches of the night he still heard Hermione's scream in that long-ago cloudless summer day. And he heard Lucius's taunting voice. 'I'll tell them you pushed her. the Muggle way.' He felt again his own desperate helplessness as his father said, 'I'll tell them what I saw and they'll believe me. You know they will.'  
  
And they had of course. As they had always been ready to believe the worst of young Draco, who was always in trouble, sometimes of his own making and sometimes not. He'd become accustomed to it and accepted Lucius's brutal beatings with a philosophical stoicism. But this had been different. The accusations had not at first been open. How could one father deliberately accuse his own son of murdering his girlfriend? Lucius said he as sure it had been an accident, that Draco had been playing a game when he'd tripped up Hermione. Off course Draco couldn't have known that Hermione would go over the cliff when he lost his balance. Draco would never have done such a stupid thing if he'd thought.  
  
But the whispers had grown and the stares had become more accusing. He couldn't walk into the Malfoy village without feeling the accusing eyes on his back, hearing the forest fires of whispers as he passed. And in his own house it was worse. Everyone looked at him in askance. His father had beaten him with such savagery that even now he carried the memory in his nerve endings, but worse then that physical pain had been the contemptuous rejection that had banished him to the dark corners of the house, where he lurked, ignored, while Philip basked in the golden warmth of approval. No one had tripped Hermione. Only no one would believe that truth; to speak it would bring worse punishment.  
  
But Draco being the only son had left him to inherit the Malfoy wealth when his father turned 30. His father had raged at him, had screamed at the lawyers when nothing could be done to change the laws of primogeniture. So Draco, in his black despair, had removed himself, with the help of Harry and Wizards debt.  
  
16 year old Draco Malfoy, no longer able to endure the taunts and the cruelties, seeing himself through his father's eyes- the unworthy and unwanted son- almost believing now that his fathers versions of the story had been true. So he tried to kill himself. Except Harry Potter had found him. Saved him and because of the laws of Wizard debt bound him to one of Harry's wishes. Harry told him to help the poor. So there he was as Lord Lucifer re-enacting Robin Hood, stealing from the rich giving to the poor. So he left. His clothes had been found on the beach. It was said in the Malfoy village that the guilt had been too much for him. And Lucius rejoiced in his fortune.  
  
And now, Lord Vladamir stood in the Ministry halls and observed his father. It had been two whole years since he'd publicly called himself Draco Malfoy, and he felt no regrets for the loss of the tormented boy who'd staged his own death. But the desire for revenge burned like hot coals. He had come to claim his birthright, and Virginia Weasley would help him to that end.  
  
-----  
  
The Minister for Defence Against the Dark Arts dallied pleasantly with his mistress, who seemed disposed to single him out this morning for special attention. 'Will you drink tea with me this evening?' she inquired prettily as he escorted her to her limo at the end of the levee.  
  
'Do you expect a large group?'  
  
The lady seemed to consider this as she steeped aside to avoid a dog's bone left carelessly by some royal pug in the middle of the corridor. 'One or two, perhaps.'  
  
Lucius smiled, responding smoothly. 'I'm not sure I've the time to share your favours Blaise.'  
  
Lady Les Sables was so unused to objections to the way she played her admirers that she looked at him in surprise and, in even greater surprise, realized that there was something chilling behind the sweet smile, that the clear grey eyes held a shadow of menace. It was a look that the Narcissa would have recognized immediately, setting her knees to tremble, but Lady Les Sable had no reason to fear the male Malfoy. And yet she found herself saying, 'well if you prefer a tête-à-tête, Lucius, I'm sure it could be arranged.'  
  
'Such indulgence. You do me such honour.' His smile broadened and he took her hand, raising it to his lips, 'Shall we say at five thirty?'  
  
The lady inclined her head in agreement, displeased with the arrangement merely because it had been pressed upon her. Yet she couldn't decide how she had come to agree so tamely. The man had become a trifle possessive in recent weeks, and she'd intended to tease him a little, to show him that she was not to be taken for granted. But, instead, she'd agreed to cancel her previous arrangements and accede to a private assignation that would inevitably end in her bedroom.  
  
Lucius handed her into her limo with the 'Les Sable' number plate and set off to walk home down Pall Mall. Malfoy Hall stood on the south side of St James Square, a handsome mansion that never failed to give him a surge of pride in his heritage. He preferred it to Malfoy Manor, a house he privately considered an unimposing and inconvenient countryseat with all the disadvantages of early Elizabethan architecture. However he had plans to add a Palladian façade and a new wing, which would give his house more consequence.  
  
His son had loved the Manor, he remembered. He'd probably turn in his grave if he could see the architect's plans for improvements. The idea made him smile as he ascended the steps to his own front door.  
  
His wife was hastening down the stairs as he entered the hall. 'Lucius, I trust you haven't forgotten that we expect my father and the Weston's for dinner,' she said, offering a timid smile.  
  
'No, I haven't forgotten,' he replied. 'But did I not also ask you to invite The Goyles?'  
  
Narcissa's colour ebbed. 'Yes, yes, indeed, Lucius. But I thought it perhaps unwise-'  
  
'Let us conduct this discussion in the salon,' her husband interrupted icily as the footman crossed the hall to the dining room.  
  
Narcissa followed him into the salon, her eyes frightened in her pale face. She was not a plain woman, five years his senior though. Her predilection for sweets, however showed in her face with pimples.  
  
'Now, let me try and comprehend this dear,' Lucius said softly as she closed the doors behind them. 'I directed you to invite the Goyles, and you took it upon yourself to ignore my order. Is that correct?'  
  
'Oh, no. no. not precisely, sir. It was not precisely like that,' Narcissa stammered.  
  
'Then feel free to educate me?' There was no sweetness in his face now, no curve of the full lips, no light in the slate grey eyes.  
  
'My father. my father and Goyle have an old quarrel,' Narcissa explained, her colour fluttering in her cheeks like a wounded bird. 'I felt it might offend both of them If they were invited to dine at the same table.'  
  
'So you took it upon yourself to go against my express commands,' he repeated softly. 'Come here!'  
  
The shocking contrast of the shouted command with his previous softness drained all colour from her face, and she flinched, cowering against the door.  
  
'Did you hear me?' His voice was once again soft and silky.  
  
In terror Narcissa took a step towards him, one hand rose to ward off the blow she knew was coming.  
  
'Put your hand down,' he commanded in the same tone, and his eyes were alight with a vicious pleasure as he saw her terror and her helplessness.  
  
Whimpering, she lowered her arm, ducking her head, hunching her shoulders.  
  
His hand lifted and he watched her shake, but he had no intention of marking her face, not when they had dinner guests arriving within the hour. Her father was an ineffectual fool, but even he might remonstrate at his daughter's bruises.  
  
Lucius lowered his hand slowly and instead caught her wrist, twisting it, watching the pain blossom in her tear filled eyes. When she cried out he released her.  
  
'In future, when I give you an instruction, you will carry it out, completely.' He said coldly. 'Won't you?'  
  
Narcissa was sobbing. Massaging her wrist that hung limp and useless, the strength wrenched from it.  
  
'Won't you?'  
  
'Yes,' she whispered through her tears.  
  
He looked at her as she shrank back against the wall, tears tracking down her hollow cheeks, her purple robe increasing the sallowness of her complexion. Her lank, silver hair was mercifully covered beneath a hat which was decorated by purple ostrich feathers that waved ludicrously above her stick figure. 'Oh, get out of here,' he said in disgust. 'And put on some makeup. You look like a frog.'  
  
Narcissa turned and fled out of the room, sobbing as she ran across the hall, no longer able, after twenty years of this marriage to summon up the pride to conceal her shame from the servants. She stumbled up the stairs and along the corridor to the nursery wing, where her only comfort lay sleeping peacefully in her cradle.  
  
The nurse glanced at her employer's tear-streaked countenance and tactfully lowered her eyes, busying herself with sewing.  
  
'Has she been good?' Narcissa asked finally, in an attempt to sound collected and in control.  
  
'She's an angel.' The nurse said smiling fondly at the sleeping Mira. 'Good as gold.'  
  
Narcissa gently stroked the smooth round cheek. Lucius had no time for the baby because it wasn't a son. And he resented her. Narcissa knew what happened to those who displeased her husband, whether through their own fault or not. She shuddered, swearing to herself that somehow she would protect this little mite from the viciousness of her father. 


	8. Chapter Seven

Chapter Six  
  
Desire Merry-Go-Round There's something burning inside of me Something I can't fight Something I can't see My dreams, my hopes, my fantasies I keep on wanting, wishing Desiring them to be real Even though I know it'll never happen Causing my heart only pain to feel Yet I go on from this desire Painstakingly waiting No more defeat Maybe one day my life can be Be complete It's an unbounded desire Never ending Everlasting I keep on wanting, wishing Desiring them to be real Even though I know it'll never happen Causing my heart only pain to feel If only it wasn't a dream Go away hopes and fantasies I don't need you any more No need to toy with me Play with someone else It's an unbounded desire Never ending Everlasting And I can never find myself No, never find myself  
  
© Copyright 2002 Silent Dreamer (FictionPress.Net ID:299626). All rights reserved. Distribution of any kind is prohibited without the written consent of Silent Dreamer.   
  
'Dad I have your medicine.' Virginia Weasley hurried into the room, throwing off the hood to her cloak. Her father convulsed with a fit of coughing, appeared not to have heard her.  
  
'Bloody lot of good it does me,' Arthur Weasley declared when his racking coughs had dies. 'Waste of hard earned money. I'd rather have a parchment for my article, but I'm cursed with an unhelpful daughter who.' Another fit took him, and he hunched over the narrow bed, his white head quivering with the spasms.  
  
Ginny was to use to the reproaches to be upset by them. 'You know the doctor said you must have the medicine,' she said calmly, shaking the small bottle that had cost three of their precious galleons. 'The doctor concocted the potion stronger this time.' She uncorked the bottle and carefully measured a dose in a small tin cup.  
  
'Here, Papa.' She came over to the bed, holding out the cup.  
  
Arthur glowered at her, his eyes sunken in his hectic cheeks. 'It's this damn coal smoke,' he grumbled. 'If we had a decent wood fire, I wouldn't have this cough.'  
  
'There are no logs in London,' Ginny said patiently. At least not for the kind of money that we have.' She bent to support his shoulders, holding the cup to his lips.  
  
For a minute it looked as if he was going to refuse the medicine; then, with a muttered 'Hell, I'm not about to die yet, child,' he straightened abruptly, snatched the cup from her and drained it.  
  
Ginny hid her relief, since it would only exacerbate his ill temper. The medicine contained a hefty dose of dragon's bone and it would bring him some much-required sleep as well as quiet the cough. In fact, it would bring them all peace and quiet for as long as he slept.  
  
She set the cup on the table with the medicine bottle and bent to plump his pillows and smooth the covers. 'Can I bring you anything else?'  
  
'Parchment,' he said, lying down again with a little moan of weakness that he couldn't conceal.  
  
'If I buy parchment, I must pawn Dante's Inferno,' she pointed out. 'And you can't work without that, I have to go to work tomorrow, anyway, as we're down to our last five galleons.'  
  
A look of distress crossed her father's eyes, and his air of petulance faded, replaced for a moment with an expression of dismayed bewilderment. Then his eyes closed.  
  
Ginny moved softly away from the bed to the hearth, still huddling in her cloak. A small fire burned, and she added a few more coals. It was extravagant, but the day was so bitter and ice crusted the inside of the windows. Most of the time her father didn't really comprehend his own part in bringing them to this situation. But then there were moments like just then where he would deliberately turn away from the understanding and from the mental distress it caused him. He had so few inner resources for dealing with poverty and deprivation. It was true he'd never had to go without anything in his life before-but, then neither had she, being the youngest and a girl, she was doted on.  
  
She blew on her hands and muttered a warming spell and watched the meagre orange flame. The noxious fumes of the sea coal thick in her lungs. But at least they had a fire, unlike the majority of their neighbours, shivering in icy garrets and cellars. By those standards Arthur, Ron and Virginia Weasley were rich beyond the dreams of avarice.  
  
The sound of his breathing, rasping but deep, came from the bed, and Ginny relaxes, wondering how to spend the few hours of blissful solitude. At the Burrow she would have curled up with a book, or played the keyboard in the music room, or walked by the dam.  
  
Vigorously she scolded herself for bootless repining. It only made the situation worse and since this was now her life and it was unlikely to change, she'd do well to make the best of it. But it had become much harder to do since her adventure with the Ferret. Adventure- was that the word for it?  
  
She gazed into the fire wishing she had more concrete memories of that night. She'd lost her virginity, and yet she only had the sense of a magical dream. The waves of pleasure that nibbled at her memory had no sharp or reality. She couldn't reproduce them because they had no reference to anything she understood. She knew only that a pair of slate grey eyes and a rich merry laugh accompanied her through the long night hours, and she awoke every morning with the sense of loss and acute disappointment, her body feeling alone and somehow wasted. The uselessness, the waste of her self in her present existence, overwhelmed her when she looked down the long, dark tunnel of the future.  
  
Tea and toast, she thought with sudden inspiration. Not a terribly extravagant indulgence- a nursery indulgence. Ron would let her have some butter and she could make tea and toast bread and slather on the butter so it melted and soaked into the crisp toast.  
  
Her mouth watering, she leaped up and took the kettle downstairs to fill it at the water butt in the yard behind the shop. Ron was kneading suet pastry on the kitchen table, his muscular fore arms bare, his hands caked with flour. He looked up and nodded a greeting.  
  
'How is he? He was coughing all last night.'  
  
'He's sleeping at the moment,' Ginny said. 'The apothecary made up some more medicine for him. Do you think you could get me some butter?' Ron had taken up the cooking after Molly had died. And was not half bad.  
  
Ron shook flour off her hands and took a wooden paddle to the thick golden pat on a dish in the middle of the table, slicing off a generous wedge. 'Is that enough?'  
  
'Thank you. Can I have some tea and toast.'  
  
'Don't spoil your appetite. There'll be a nice steak and kidney pudding for dinner.' Ron returned to his suet. 'You'll have to break the ice in the water.'  
  
Ginny went out into the yard, shivering despite both the spell and the cloak. She took a stone and cracked the ice of the water, making a hole big enough to dip the kettle, trying not to get her gloves wet as she filled it. Then she hurried back into the warmth of the kitchen and up the narrow stairs into her own chilly apartments.  
  
Her father was still asleep. She put the kettle on the oven to boil and then threw off her coat, fetching a fur-lined wool dressing gown from the massive armoire that contained both their scanty wardrobes. She slipped the garments on over her thin gown and returned to the fire, where she speared a slice of bread on the toasting fork and then knelt to hold the fork to the spurting flames. Soon the delicious smell of toasting bread filled the room and she allowed her mind to drift back into the past to the warmth of nursery fires and the sweet taste of honey on her tongue. to the blazing fire of the burrow and the rich aromas of mutton and oyster soup.  
  
There was a sharp rap at the door, and Ginny jumped, startled from her reverie. Ron, presumably. She bade the knocker to enter, taking the half- toasted slice of bread off the fork, burning her fingers as she turned it over to brown the other side.  
  
'Something smells appetizing.'  
  
Ginny dropped the toasting fork. The voice was so unexpected, and yet as she heard it, she realized how it had been echoing, an ever-present memory, in her mind since she'd last seen him. It was the voice that belonged to the dream and she had never thought to hear it again.  
  
'You?' She stared at her visitor. He wore his own long hair loose around his shoulders. A high-collared cape cloak of dark broadcloth hung from his shoulders, opened to reveal a black turtleneck and black formal pants. Simple enough clothes, and yet in this plain room he looked as exotic as a tropical butterfly in an English meadow.  
  
Draco bowed with a touch of mockery. 'Yes, Miss Weasley. At your service.' He glanced towards the bed and closed the door softly. 'Your father's sleeping?'  
  
'He's sick,' she replied still on her knees before the fire, still to astounded to absorb this visitation. 'But he won't be awake for several hours.'  
  
The lid of the kettle rattled vigorously as the water boiled, and she reached automatically to lift it off the hob. 'Would you like some toast and tea?'  
  
It struck her as a ridiculous offer even as she made it, but she could think of nothing else to say. She was over poweringly conscious of her of the wool of her dressing gown, of the tattiness of the fur edged cuffs. Five years ago it had been the most elegant garment of her wardrobe, and it was the one piece of luxurious clothing she hadn't sold after the catastrophe, because it was warm and practical. But it was now no longer luxurious or even particularly warm as the fur lining grew thinner and flatter with continued wear.  
  
'If you have a second fork, I could toast it on my own,' Draco said, throwing off his cloak and taking a seat on the stool. 'I hope this isn't your dinner, it seems very insubstantial.' He had taken in the threadbare condition of the clothes she wore, when not out on CV business, but he was more aware of the oval beauty of her face, the lambent tawny eyes, the thick, rich rope of hair hanging from her shoulder.  
  
Ginny passed him a second fork. 'We board one of the Creevy houses,' she said with a touch of hauteur, carefully measuring tea into the pot and pouring on the boiling water. She didn't add that they ate only when they could afford to pay at least 10 Knuts. Today they had it, but tomorrow she would have to venture into London's West End to raid the pockets of the rich for the CV. Just the thought of it, made her sick with apprehension, so she chose not to anticipate the terror.  
  
'I see,' Draco said neutrally, spearing a slice of bread and holding it to the fire. 'Do you skate?'  
  
'Skate?' It was such a non sequitur that she almost laughed out loud, 'on ice?'  
  
'Is there another kind of surface that is good enough to skate on?' He turned his bread on the fork, raising his eyes to her flushed, startled face.  
  
'I used to skate on the dam outside the burrow every winter as a child,' she said passing him a thick china cup of tea. 'Why?' It was quite ridiculous to be kneeling before the fire sharing nursery tea and discussing winter memories of her childhood. And yet, paradoxically, it felt natural.  
  
'Well I thought we might amuse ourselves skating this afternoon,' he answered, blowing on his tea in a very un-Draco like manner. 'The Serpentine is frozen, and everyone who can beg or borrow a pair of skates is out there.'  
  
'Unfortunately, I can do neither,' she said with constraint. 'Skates don't seem like a particularly useful item when it came to packing up and leaving The Burrow.'  
  
'Your family home?'  
  
'In Northumberland.'  
  
'You must have been use to the winter cold.'  
  
'It was a different kind of cold from London's. This is damp and bites to the marrow,' she said. 'I'm use to a dry bright cold.'  
  
He buttered his piece of toast. 'I have two pairs of skates in the Mercedes. One will definitely fit your feet.' He took a bite, licking butter from his lips with an appreciative nod.  
  
Ginny nibbled her own toast, forcing herself to recapture reality. An invitation to go skating on the Serpentine belonged in some other world; it had nothing to do with this dank, freezing room and her father's stertorous sleep and the prospect of Ron's steak and kidney pudding for dinner, followed by her own chill garret bed as soon as the light faded. Electricity and fires after dark were a luxury they couldn't afford.  
  
Draco leaned over, caught her chin, and wiped away a smear of butter with his thumb. 'Well what do you say?'  
  
'I can't leave my father.'  
  
'You've done it before, and you can do it again. I'm sure your oblivious brother and ummm his, partner Harry will be able to look after him. Besides I have a proposal to make to you. one that I hope will be to a mutual advantage,' he said carefully, a slow smile perking at the side of his lips.  
  
'A proposal?' In the light of their past dealings, Ginny could think of only one kind of proposal he might term mutually advantageous. Her eyes narrowed, their golden glow fading to be replaced by a cold glitter. 'And exactly what would that be?'  
  
'I'll explain later.'  
  
'Oh, please skip the ceremony Draco.' Her voice was dangerously low, her eyes icy slits. 'I'm sure I can hear it here as well as anywhere.'  
  
Draco stood up. 'No, I don't think so,' he said in a habitual fashion. 'It's pretty complex.'  
  
Ginny jumped to her feet, two bright flags of colour flying in her cheeks. 'II already told you Malfoy; I'm NOT for sale. Maybe you thought I would be flattered, grateful even.' She gestured with expressive contempt at the room. 'But I'm so sorry to ruin your delusion. I want absolutely nothing to do with your proposals.'  
  
'Even if you were for sale. I doubt I would even take a second look at you,' he returned coolly. 'I can assure you I've never had to pay for sex.'  
  
'Get out!' Ginny commanded with low-voiced ferocity. 'You may believe that whatever happened the other night gives you the right to insult me, but the truth is you're a stupid ferret fuckwit who's life is ruled with his dick!'  
  
There was a moment of stunned silence; then Draco started to laugh, his rich merry laugh sending the dark shadows scurrying into the corners like bats escaping the light. 'Well, that's telling me!' he declared. 'What an impressive vocabulary of insults you have Virginia.'  
  
'Get out!' she repeated, folding her arms glaring at him with an intensity of loathing.  
  
'No, I don't think so.' He glanced around the room, and his eye fell on the armoire. 'You will need your cloak and boots. The one you were wearing at the Mermaids Tavern will do.'  
  
He strode over to her wardrobe. Ginny bounced across the room in his wake, grabbing his arm as he moved to open the door. 'Will you listen to me?'  
  
'With the greatest pleasure, once you start to say something sensible,' he responded equably, freeing his arm and opening the door. 'But so far you've only prated arrant nonsense. Now let me repeat. now listen carefully.' He drew out her cloak. 'I have a proposal to make to you, one that involves no buying or selling. Put this on. One that I trust will work to our mutual advantage.' He bent and lifted out her boots.  
  
With an air of great satisfaction, as if he'd just found a treasure trove. 'Now hurry and dress, while I go and explain to your brother and Harry that you will not be back until after dinner.'  
  
'No. Wait.'  
  
He paused at the doorway and turned with an air of exaggerated patience. 'Now what?'  
  
Ginny stared at him, at a loss. She was rarely at a loss and didn't like the situations at all. 'You can't just takeover like this,' she said finally aware of how lame it sounded.  
  
'If I don't, my dear ma'am, it's clear that nothing will be accomplished,' he responded. 'Join me below stairs, please. I trust it won't take you more then a couple of minutes.'  
  
He was gone, pointedly leaving the door slightly adjusted. Ginny chewed her lip, glancing at the still-sleeping figure in the bed. The medicine and done its work well; and she knew that when he awoke, her father would be groggy and disorientated. Ron could look after him perfectly well until she returned, and she would be able to pay her from the proceeds of tomorrow's expeditions.  
  
If Malfoy wasn't going to propose that she become his whore, then what could he possibly have in mind?  
  
A weak ray of sunshine crept through the grimy window, falling across her face as she stood in indecision and confusion. And suddenly she knew it didn't matter what he had in mind. Whatever it was, it was going to alter her present circumstances in some way.  
  
And the sun was shining and the Serpentine was frozen and there was a long afternoon to be spent outside this drear prison.  
  
She threw off her shabby dressing gown. Flinging the cloak around her shoulders, she slipped quietly from the room, closing the door gently behind her, and then ran down the stairs, unable to control a surge of exuberance that seemed to belong to some long-ago and half-forgotten person.  
  
Draco was talking to her brother, to her surprise, at the foot of the stairs as she jumped down. Her brother was looking gratified, and Ginny caught the glint of silver in his palm.  
  
'You go and enjoy yourself with Vlad,' Ron said, winking. 'Dad'll be fine with me and Harry. I'll leave the back door unlocked for you just in case you come home late,' another broad wink.  
  
Ginny winced, but an attempt to deny the construction the woman was putting on the circumstances would be pointless. She wouldn't be believed, and, indeed, how should she be? What more natural than for a young woman down on her luck to accept the friendship of a member of the Ministry? No one would think less of her around here- in fact quite the opposite, until they found out who 'Vlad' is.  
  
She followed Malfoy out into the street, where his car stood. He opened the door for her and then followed her inside, and within ten minutes they'd left the mean streets behind and were driving through the city toward the Strand.  
  
'You shouldn't have given my brother money, he'll be so angry once he finds out who you are,' Ginny said.  
  
'Of course,' he agreed affably. 'I just thought it would be easier for him to let you out with a complete stranger, little Weasel.'  
  
'I'll pay you back, I expect to have money again by tomorrow,' she said a little stiffly.  
  
'Going picking again, Virginia?' He raised his eyebrow.  
  
'I do what I have to,' she retorted. 'You of all people should understand that.'  
  
'Who said I didn't? You keep jumping to conclusions,' he complained.  
  
Ginny was silent for a minute, then said, 'I can't help jumping to conclusions when everything is shrouded in mystery. What is your proposal, ferret?'  
  
'All in good time,' he said, turning through Stanhope gate into Hyde Park. The park was crawling with people, cars, riders, and pedestrians strolling through the crisp air engaged in the vital society business of seeing and being seen.  
  
If things had been different, she would have been part of this elegant throng, Ginny thought bitterly. She would have had her connections, made a good, convenient marriage, probably with Harry, if he hadn't turned gay and fell for Ron, and this would have been her world for life.  
  
'I imagine your father lost his money before you could enter the Ministry circle?' her companion observed, again evincing that uncanny ability to come up with her thoughts.  
  
Ginny shrugged. 'I probably wouldn't have liked it anyway.'  
  
'Liar,' he accused gently. 'How old are you Virginia? Eighteen, nineteen?'  
  
'Eighteen,' she answered dully.  
  
'I doubt you'd have been happy with Harry, he's to convential and you're too fond of asserting yourself to be compliant.' Draco remarked, nodding his head as a lady waved at him from a path beside the road.  
  
Ginny wondered if this was a compliment or a criticism, but it had a ring of truth. 'You seem to have a lot of friends for a wanted man,' she observed, adding tartly, 'A mind boggling amount in fact.'  
  
He chuckled. 'But here, Virginia, I am no more a thief then you are a pickpocket.'  
  
The car stopped at the bank of the Serpentine beside a small cement shed where a man was dispensing mugs of chocolate and chestnuts roasted over a fire. A group of teenage boys were swooping and dancing over the ice to the strains of 'Greensleeves' played by a troupe of Gypsy musicians.  
  
Draco sprang down from the car, a pair of shiny skates in his hands. 'Allow me, Miss Weasley.' Standing beside the carriage, he deftly strapped the pair of blades onto her feet, then reached up and lifted her out. He carried her easily to the ice and set her down at the edge, his hands still at her waist until she got her balance. 'Tell me when you're steady.'  
  
Ginny stood for a minute, getting the feel of the blades; then by way of answer she gave an exultant little chuckle. Turning out of his hands, she swooped away on a one-foot glide that carried her almost to the middle of the lake.  
  
Spinning, she waved at him as he sat on the edge to strap on his own blades.  
  
She reminded him of a phoenix released from a cage as she swooped over the ice, and he could hear her joyous laughter as he skated over to her. 'Isn't it wonderful!' Her eyes shone, her cheeks pinkened with the cold, her lips parted in a flashing smile.  
  
A current of desire shocked him, jolting his stomach. He wanted her with an incontinent urgency he didn't remember ever feeling for a woman before. But he wanted her like this, awake and laughing, glorying in the purity of physical sensation, not responding involuntarily to the dictates of a sensual trance.  
  
She caught his expression and the laughter dies abruptly, but her face remained open and alive, her lips still parted, her eyes still shining, but with a different light now, that matched his own. She glanced around the thronged lake with an almost desperate air, as if she too were in the grip of an urgent hunger that required instant gratification.  
  
'Come, lets skate further along, away from the crowd,' he said his voice a husky rasp, cutting the invisible line of tension between them. 'I want you to listen to what I have to say without interruption.' He took her hand, drawing her around the lake to a less densely populated spot.  
  
Ginny knew now that she was going to agree to anything he suggested. She was riding a tide of reckless inspiration like a piece of tumbling seaweed, and she would come ashore wherever the tide tossed her. She no longer knew how to define herself, knew only the ghastly present and the equally grim future it would spawn must be avoided. She must seize the lifeline offered her or drown in the mire of hopelessness.  
  
'So?' she invited, doing a neat three-turn that brought her round to face him. 'What's your proposal Draco?'  
  
'A marriage,' he said simply. 'A social deception that will enable you to be revenged upon the men who ruined your father and will enable me to be revenged upon my own enemy.'  
  
Ginny's jaw dropped. Whatever she had been expecting, it hadn't been this. 'What do you mean, a social deception?'  
  
'Well, of course I'm not suggesting we really go through a marriage ceremony,' he said, as if it were axiomatic. 'Only that we present ourselves to the Ministry society as a newly married couple. I have enough money to set up the enterprise, a good house, servants, and cars. And then we will exchange vengeances.'  
  
The light and thunder had faded from his face now and his eyes were that arctic grey she'd seen before, his expression almost mask like. 'Who, who deserves your vengeance?' she asked tentatively.  
  
'Think Grryffindor, a man. the man responsible for the misunderstanding that drove me to the road,' he said, his voice curt, 'you can guess all the minor details. All you have to do is pick his pocket. The item you have to steal lies very close to his chest, so you will have to become intimately acquainted with him. If necessary, you will have to seduce him. I doubt it will be very hard. This man can be relied to covet another's belongings. A man who's vanity is so large that the attentions of a beautiful and desirable woman will sweep him off his guard.'  
  
Virginia heard the venom in his voice, and its chill slowed the blood in her veins.  
  
'I have to seduce him?' she said slowly, struggling to grasp the implications of such a suggestion. 'You want me to have sex with your father?'  
  
'Yes, if it should prove necessary in order to remove from his body the object I require to achieve my own ends,' he said with cold detachment. 'Somewhere on his body he carries at all times a certain very small ring, a ring to fit a baby's finger. You will have to steal that ring.'  
  
'But how can you be certain he always carries it?' She looked at him with confusion.  
  
He knew because he always carried his own. Lucius would obey the same Malfoy tradition- superstition some mught call it- that the ring must never leave its owners possession unless it was buried with him.  
  
'I'm sure,' he said evenly.  
  
And then, when he had the ring, Vladimir Shickacovick would step forward and present himself as Draco Malfoy, the legitimate owner of all Malfoy estates, thus with access to all of Lucius's dark arts equipment condemning him. Lucius would be destroyed, his pride in the dust, his influence ashes in the wind.  
  
'You want me to have sex with him,' Ginny repeated slowly, seizing on this one aspect as at least vaguely comprehensible in this extraordinary conversation.  
  
He looked at her, his eyes snapping into focus. 'In exchange for which I will engage to ruin the men who ruined your father, and I will engage to ruin the men who ruined your father, and I will return your home and fortune to you.'  
  
'But how will you do that?'  
  
'I'll explain later, when we have set the stage. But you may be assured that I will do it, and when our little play is over, you, your father and brothers will have your fortune and property returned to you.'  
  
It was too much to absorb. Whatever scheme he might have for fulfilling his side of such a preposterous bargain, the whole idea was impossible to take in. How could she deliberately set out to seduce and fuck a stranger?  
  
'And this. this marriage?' she grasped feebly at another loose end waving just beyond her comprehension.  
  
'When we have no further use for it, then we will part,' he said easily. 'You will have what you want and I'll have what I want. We'll create some fiction to ensure that you can live the life you choose.'  
  
'You'll have me act like a whore,' she stated flatly. It was suddenly the only simple fact that made sense to her. Draco was attempting to buy her as he would by a whore. But not for his own enjoyment- as a tool to accomplish his own purpose.  
  
'Ginny, in this world liaisons are a common practice and women who practice them are not known as whores,' he returned. 'I would ask you to do what countless other women are doing, have done before you, and will do after you. Your mind and emotions aren't included in the task.'  
  
And what about her father and her brother? Where did they come in tho this scheming? But, presumably, the Ferret hadn't given Arthur and Ron Weasley a thought. And at this moment even to Ginny, her family's role in all this seemed irrelevant.  
  
Virginia turned away to hide from Draco, the confused responses chasing across her countenance. Her voice sounded stifled to her ears as she said, 'and what about us? Of this counterfeit marriage? Is that also to incur no involvement of the mind and emotions?'  
  
He was silent for a moment, then said dryly, 'I doubt that.'  
  
When she said nothing, but remained half-turned from him, he continued in a quiet matter-of-fact tone, 'but if you would prefer to play that part of my wife only in name, I think I could attempt to respect that.'  
  
'Is that what you want?' Still she wouldn't look at him.  
  
'No,' he said readily. 'No, I wouldn't.'  
  
He put his hand on her shoulder and gently turned her toward him. His eyes were soft now, his mouth smiling. He cupped the curve of her cheek in his hand. 'If you enjoyed the other night, Gin, I swear to you, sweetheart, that it was nothing compared to what could be.'  
  
Virginia swallowed, felt herself melting under the buttery warmth of his voice, the heat of his eyes, the lascivious intent of his words.  
  
'We would have all that together, and we would be revenged upon our enemies. And we would make fools of everyone of the vain, posturing idiots who see nothing of the world that exists beyond the sugary confection of their own creation.'  
  
Suddenly he laughed and the intensity was broken. 'Will you teach them a lesson, Gin?'  
  
She looked behind her at the brightly clad crowd of skaters in their furs and velvets, secure in the knowledge that food and warmth and pleasure were theirs for the taking. She saw the children, barefoot in the frozen gutters, eyes sunken in their starved faces. The women sprawled in the mud, clutching an empty beer bottle to their breasts, the neglected babies wailing thinly on the ground beside them.  
  
She and the ferret knew the other face of London. Crabbe and Goyle had ensured that she and her family would know that face intimately for the rest of their lives.  
  
What Draco was proposing was preposterous. It was madness. But is it could work.? Oh, if it could work, it would be an adventure to challenge any fantasy.  
  
But if it were necessary, could she cold-bloodedly seduce some unknown man?  
  
For such a purpose and such an adventure? Yes, offcourse she could. The Virginia Weasley who would have reacted to such a prospect with revulsion had long lost her delicate sensibilities. They were a luxury she hadn't been able to afford for three years. Besides, it wasn't as if she were still a virgin. And for a woman who regularly risked her neck picking pockets for a living, simple seduction was nothing. It wouldn't put her neck in a noose. unless, of course, she was caught stealing the ring.  
  
An icy shiver ran down her spine. In this scenario there'd be no crowd in which to lose herself.  
  
But she wouldn't be caught. She was too good at it for that. Too deft and quick. She would not be caught. And when it was done. oh, when it was done, there was the promise of restitution and once again a future was worth having.  
  
Draco watched as her thoughts flew across her expressive countenance, and he read them as clearly as if they were written on the pages of a book. He didn't need to hear her speak her agreement and said after a minute, 'Do you know the names of the men who robbed your family?'  
  
'Men?' she said scornfully. 'Swine.'  
  
He inclined his head in grave acceptance of this correction. 'Do you know the name of those swine.'  
  
'Crabbe and Goyle, your goons.'  
  
They're good friends with the vice Minister of Magic.' He said. 'I know them, as Vlad, but it shouldn't be hard to become good friends with them again. Do they know you?'  
  
Ginny shook her head. 'I was away when they approached my father. He was out at the dam when they did the deed.' She shrugged.  
  
'Good. Much better that they don't know you since Hogwarts, might be even better if they don't recognize you personally,' Draco said briskly. 'Come, you're getting cold. Let's skate back to the crowd. I'll show you the man.'  
  
Ginny remained where she was for a moment. 'But what do we with my father and Ron while we're putting the world in its right position?'  
  
'Ron could stay with Harry, as he would want to judging by their, uhh. circumstances. As for your father, I suggest we tuck him up safe and warm with his books,' the ferret said airily. 'Whatever you wish to tell him, I'll back you up to the hilt.'  
  
Ginny knew perfectly well that her father and Ron wouldn't ask awkward questions in case he didn't like the answers, one of the implications of the War of the Dead. They'd both accept a change of circumstances with their usual insouciance, at least on the surface.  
  
So there it was. A wild fantastic contract lay between them. Her life was about to change out of all recognition. And yet there was nothing to mark such a momentous bargain. Not even solemn words of acceptance.  
  
He had taken her hand and was drawing her along beside him as they skated back to the wider area where the fashionable skaters congregated. She glanced sideways up at his face and saw no change. She'd half expected to see some demonic twist of satisfaction to his mouth or in his eyes, but he wore his usual expression of cool serenity with the little half smile of mockery playing over his lips.  
  
'Over there,' he said quietly. 'Do you see the tall, slender man in the burgundy velvet cloak with the fair straight hair?'  
  
'Near the tree?' Virginia looked sharply at her companion.  
  
'Yes,' said Draco quietly.  
  
What mystery was this? Ginny looked across the ice toward the man she was to seduce and rob. He was skating with marked grace, his willowy figure moving elegantly around his partner. He wore no hat, and his hair was a luxuriant river of white blonde hair, restrained at the nape of his neck with a scarlet ribbon. He was too far away for her to form any impression other than of fair grace and assured elegance.  
  
'What is he to you?' she asked, unconsciously whispering.  
  
'My enemy and father.'  
  
Such a flat, bald declaration left no room for further questioning, but she tried. 'And you won't tell me how he has injured you.'  
  
'It's not necessary for you to know that.'  
  
Ginny was silent, continuing to gaze across the ice at the man who was the core of her misfortune throughout her teenage years. The hairs on the nape of her neck prickled, and a shudder rippled down her spine, but it was not the cold.  
  
Excitement or apprehension, she didn't know. But then, the two were for the moment inextricable. 


	9. Chapter Eight

Chapter Seven  
  
I serve my head up on a plate It's only comfort calling late Cause there's nothing else to do Every me and every you Every me and every you Every me  
  
Like the naked leads the blind I know I'm selfish I'm unkind Cause there's nothing else to do Every me and every you  
  
Placebo- Every me every you  
  
'What is he to you?' she asked, unconsciously whispering.  
  
'My enemy and father.'  
  
Such a flat, bald declaration left no room for further questioning, but she tried. 'And you won't tell me how he has injured you.'  
  
'It's not necessary for you to know that.'  
  
Ginny was silent, continuing to gaze across the ice at the man who was the core of her misfortune throughout her teenage years. The hairs on the nape of her neck prickled, and a shudder rippled down her spine, but it was not the cold.  
  
Excitement or apprehension, she didn't know. But then, the two were for the moment inextricable.  
  
'Let's go.' Draco's calm voice sounded like a pair of cymbals crashing into the tight circle of her own thoughts.  
  
'I promised you dinner,' he said smiling now, no mocking twist to his mouth, and a gleam in his eye that turned her knees to water.  
  
'Where?' The question came out muffled, and she cleared her throat. 'Where should we have dinner?'  
  
'Well, that depends on you, Miss Weasley.' The gleam in his eye intensified. 'I'm sure we could dine well enough in Ja'dores, if of course you agree. And I'll drive you back home afterward.'  
  
'Then, again,' he continued in a musing tone, 'your clothes are hardly suitable, and the restaurant is popular with the Ministry Society. There's nothing more uncomfortable than feeling underdressed in such circumstances. You could always keep your cloak on, though. but that may make dinner rather awkward, don't you agree?'  
  
'It might,' Ginny murmured equably, waiting with interest for this tortuous reasoning to reach its conclusion. It seemed Draco had his own plans for the evening, and this apparent desire to solicit her opinion was little more then a game.  
  
'Of course we do have a great deal to discuss,' he went on. 'Details and such. It might be easier to do that in a more secluded place than a crowded restaurant.'  
  
'I'm sure you're right,' Ginny assented demurely. 'What do you suggest?'  
  
He stroked his chin, frowning reflectively as if seriously considering a variety of options. 'Well, I could suggest the Mermaid's tavern,' he said finally. 'We would be perfectly private there, and I can vouch for the dinner.'  
  
'But it might be difficult for me to return home afterward,' Ginny pointed out considering. 'It would be very late to drive back again.'  
  
'There is that,' he said nodding. 'Yes, certainly, one must take that into account.'  
  
'Of course, Papa will probably sleep through until morning, and Ron will take care of him if he wakes. so I could always lie over night at the tavern,' Ginny mused with the same due consideration. 'That might be a solution?'  
  
'It might,' he agreed. 'Should you wish to do that, ma'am?'  
  
'If such a solution would maybe advance my education in some way, it might be said that we could kill two birds with one stone,' Ginny murmured, her eyes lowered as she idly traced a pattern on the ice with the toe of her skate.  
  
'I could guarantee it,' Malfoy declared. 'It would be an efficient use of time.'  
  
'And efficiency is vital when planning such a uh grand enterprise.'  
  
'Doubtless.'  
  
Virginia raised her eyes and met his gaze. Laughter danced across the cool grey surface of his eyes, but beneath that surface the colour deepened as if she were looking into the depths of a bottomless well.  
  
'Then, one could conclude that the Mermaid's Tavern is the best solution.'  
  
'An extraordinary decision.'  
  
'And one I came to all by myself, of course,' Ginny murmured, following as he skated to the edge of the ice.  
  
He glanced over his shoulder, observing airily, 'Rest assured, weasel, that I shall always strive for consensus when it comes to making important decisions.'  
  
'My mind is at rest, ferret.' She sat at the edge of the ice to unstrap her skates, aware that her flushed cheeks belied the statement. The pointed banter had aroused and excited her in a way she'd never felt before. She could think only of the promised lesson, of recapturing the joy of her dream, only this time with her mind as essential to the pleasure of her body.  
  
When he reached down to take her hand and pull her to her feet, the simple strength in his gloved fingers turned her knees to water, and for an instant she swayed toward him as if her legs wouldn't bear her weight.  
  
He slipped an arm around her waist, holding her against him for a second, and his scent filled her nostrils, making her giddy. With a muttered exclamation she pushed herself free and walked over to the car, mortified by the absurd weakness, by the extraordinary excitation of her nerves. Anyone would think she was some feeble swooning maiden in need of burned feathers and hartshorn.  
  
She climbed up into the car before Draco could offer assistance and sat primly on the seat, drawing her cloak tightly around her before clasping her hands in her lap and gazing with apparent fixed interest at the scene on the lake.  
  
Draco said nothing but cast her a sideways glance, his eyes hooded so she couldn't read their expression. But she had the feeling that he both knew what had happened and was amused by it. It didn't help her sense of embarrassment, which grew as these strange, tormenting desires showed no sign of abating, until she was beginning to wonder if she would fall upon him as soon as they were alone, tearing his clothes from his body with hungry cries of primitive passion.  
  
Absurd! She huddled into her cloak, drawing as far to the edge of the seat as she could. It would be less mortifying, of course, if her companion was subject to the same urgencies, but somehow she doubted it. They rose, she was convinced, from her own inexperience, and Draco Tobias Malfoy was too cool and collected, too experienced in these realms, to be ruled by tidal waves of unbidden and unruly emotion.  
  
'If you inch any further sideways, you'll fall out,' Draco observed. 'Am I taking up too much room?'  
  
'No. no, offcourse not,' Ginny disclaimed hastily. 'I didn't want to get in the way of your arm. make it difficult for you to move. or something.' She stumbled to a halt, her face on fire.  
  
'How very considerate of you,' he murmured. 'But I assure you there's not even the slightest danger of that.' He slipped his left arm around her waist and yanked her along the leather seat until she was sitting so close to him his shoulder brushed her cheek. 'That's a little more friendly, I believe.'  
  
'But hardly decorous,' she said trying to hold herself rigidly upright despite the encircling arm.  
  
Draco chuckled. 'Maybe not, but decorum is not on today's agenda.'  
  
Virginia pursed her lips and kept silent until she'd recovered some measure of equanimity; then she changed the subject, hoping that a new subject would focus her attention on something other than erotic fantasy. 'Have you thought where we should set up a house for this charade?'  
  
'I've taken a lease on a comfortable furnished house on Dover Street.'  
  
The change of topic worked like a charm. Ginny was so startled, all thoughts of the indecorous hours lying ahead of her vanished. She jerked herself sideways, away from his encircling arm, and nearly toppled off the seat. 'Already? But. but how would you know I would agree?'  
  
Draco withdrew his arm. 'I was optimistic.'  
  
'No you're a pompous arrogant bastard,' she declared icily.  
  
'Am I?' He glanced at her with open amusement. 'We could be two of a kind, if you take away your Weasleyness and have someone fuck you over. I could guess how you would react as easily as I could guess my own response to such a proposal.'  
  
'Of all the arrogant, impertinent.' She fell into a fulminating silence.  
  
'Words fail you?' he inquired, raising an incredulous eyebrow. 'I never thought to see the day.'  
  
'I must be going mad!' Ginny exploded. 'I detest you! What am I doing here?'  
  
'Oh, I think you know the answer to that perfectly well,' he responded as they turned of Westminster Bridge and entered the quieter realms south of the river. 'You're as eager for a certain course of lessons as I am to teach them. And you're as eager for your own vengeance as I am for mine. So let's not pretend. at least between ourselves.'  
  
'For a biological Malfoy you show a most remarkable lack of finesse,' Ginny retorted.  
  
'I'm a realist,' he said. 'A plain, blunt wizard. If my bluntness offends you, then you can only forgive me, but I fear I cannot change the habits of a lifetime.'  
  
'What kind of lifetime? After Lucius?'  
  
'Maybe I'll tell you one day.'  
  
'You know my story, why won't you tell me yours?'  
  
'Because I choose not to tell you.'  
  
'We're to live under the same roof, perpetrate this fraud, and you expect me to follow your lead without knowing anything about you. about what brought you to this?' she said with indignant frustration. 'I mean look at you, you live two different fabrications, while masking the truth.'  
  
'Yes.'  
  
'The simple agreement rendered her speechless. She sat beside him; unable to think of anything to say that would puncture her companion's infuriating self-possession. His air of world-weary cynicism sat easily on his broad brow, and he exuded an indefinable aura of mastery that she knew she couldn't withstand. He'd swept her up into his life, made her part of his schemes, but where she saw herself as a self-determining, decision making individual, in his eyes she was merely an adjunct, a useful tool to be bent to the correct shape.  
  
The winter afternoon was drawing in; light appearing in the cottages they passed. Her companion showed no inclination to break the silence, although her mute anger buzzed around the car like a nest of invisible hornets. Ginny thought about telling him that for once he'd misjudged the situation. That she didn't want to participate in his schemes on these terms. That he should turn the car and take her back to town.  
  
She thought about saying these things, but she didn't say them.  
  
The lights of the Mermaid's tavern shone brightly in the gathering dusk, and again Ben and the gangly lad emerged to greet them as Draco drew up beneath the creaking sign.  
  
'Eh, we wasn't expectin' ye this early, Luke,' Ben said as the highwayman jumped to the ground. 'I see ye've brought miss again.'  
  
'So I have, Ben,' Draco agreed cheerfully, turning to lift Ginny out of the car. 'We have some important matters to discuss, and this seemed the quietest place for it.'  
  
'Oh, aye,' Ben said with a snort of laughter. 'We knows all about such 'portant matters in the Mermaid's tavern.'  
  
Ginny stood still in the yellow lamplight from the open door. Folding her arms, she glared at the innkeeper, who was grinning from ear to ear. 'I doubt you know anything at all, Ben. What I'm doing here is of no concern of yours, and I'll thank you to keep your observations to yourself.' Then she spun on her heel and entered the inn. If she couldn't do battle with the Draco, she could at least show the people in this den of thieves that she was more than one of their precious Lord Lucifer's toys.  
  
'Eh, that's a sharp tongue an' no mistake,' Ben said still grinning, apparently quite unperturbed by Ginny's rebuke. Draco shrugged acceptingly and followed Virginia into the inn.  
  
Bessie came out of the kitchen, her face flushed from the fire where she'd been turning a haunch of venison on a spit. She ignored Ginny and greeted Draco with a nod. 'Ye'd best go to the fire in the taproom, Luke, until yer room's warmed up. Tab's only jest lit yer fire. We wasn't expectin' ye until after dark.'  
  
'No worry,' Draco said easily. 'I'll have a tankard of ale, and Miss Morgan will take a glass of madeira.' He swept Ginny into the busy taproom under Bessie's baleful stare.  
  
Ginny wondered how many of the occupants of the taproom had been there on her last visit, and her yes darted involuntarily to the long deal table in the middle of the room, two spots of colour burning on her cheeks.  
  
Voices were raised in greeting and Draco answered them cheerfully, escorting Ginny to a seat on a couch beside the fire. If he was aware of her embarrassment, he gave no sign, except he treated her with a deferential formality, which was at odds with his usual manner.  
  
'Allow me to take your cloak, ma'am.' He unclasped it without waiting for her to do it for herself and slipped it from her shoulders. 'Take a seat and warm yourself. Tab will bring your glass soon.'  
  
An interested silence had fallen. Virginia felt herself the focus of every gaze. She turned her face to the fire and pretended to be warming her hands. After a minute the conversation picked up again, and her skin ceased to prickle with the sense of a hundred eyes upon her.  
  
Draco handed her a glass of madeira, then stood beside her, his back to the fire, his body offering a partial shield from the rest of the room. This unlooked-for consideration went some way toward soothing her ruffled temper. She relaxed, leaning against the hard oak back of the couch, sipping her wine, and stretching her feet to the fire.  
  
'Eh. is Luke 'ere?' A harsh voice broke urgently through the pleasant hum of voices. Ginny looked up sharply and saw that Draco had suddenly tensed.  
  
'Aye, Morris,' he said. 'I'm here. Do you have something for me?'  
  
'Aye.'  
  
Virginia glanced toward the door, where stood a villainous-looking individual huddled in a rusty black cloak over a labourer's smock, a frayed straw hat on his head, a corncob pipe cradled against the palm of one hand.  
  
'A pint of yer best, Bessie,' the new arrival shouted, stepping into the room. 'Charge it to Lord Luke.'  
  
Draco crossed the room toward Morris. He jerked his head toward the door. 'Step outside, Morris.'  
  
'Eh, but its cold as charity out here,' the newcomer grumbled, taking the tankard and drank noisily, emerging with a moustache of froth that he wiped off with the back of a ragged sleeve. 'You want to know what I 'eard at the Whale and Pipe.'  
  
'Outside!' Draco's voice was a whip crack. He glanced toward Virginia, who was watching the scene with unabashed interest; then he stalked out of the taproom. Morris drained his tankard, slammed it down on the counter, and shambled after him.  
  
'Beats me where that Morris gets 'is information from,' Ben observed to the room at large. 'But he's always comin' wi' summat or other. Luke says he's 'is best informer. doesn't waste no time on anythin' but fat pickin's.'  
  
What on earth were they talking about? Ginny curled into the corner of the couch, happy to be forgotten as the discussion buzzed around her. What information would Draco find valuable?  
  
Her reverie was interrupted by the return of its subject. He was looking somewhat preoccupied, a frown creasing his forehead.  
  
'Tab assures me my room is now as worm as toast,' he said. 'Shall we go up?'  
  
Ginny rose, forgetting the mysterious Morris in her eagerness to get away from the public taproom.  
  
'I'll send dinner up to ye in 'alf an hour, Luke,' Bessie announced from the other side of the counter, still ignoring Draco's companion. 'I've a nice haunch of venison with red currant jelly, a neat's tongue, an' a dish of lampreys. Which d'ye fancy?'  
  
'Oh, all three, if you please,' Draco said carelessly. 'We're both sharp set.' He ushered Ginny up the stairs ahead of him into his room.  
  
'Is Bessie always this pleasant to your visitors?' Ginny inquired.  
  
'Believe it or not, you're the only visitor I've had,' he said, pouring madeira into two glasses.  
  
'I feel honoured.' Ginny took the glass he handed her. 'I was sure you must have had a stream of panting females eager for the attentions of such a notorious Malfoy.'  
  
Draco regarded her thoughtfully over the lip of his glass. 'We seem to be at odds again. A short time ago I was congratulating us on having achieved a state of harmony that could only be increased as the evening continued, and now we're wands drawn. or, at least, you are. I'm at a loss to know how it came about.'  
  
'Don't be disingenuous. You know perfectly well how it came about.' Ginny sat down in the armchair beside the fire. 'You expect me to follow your direction without giving me so much as a scrap of information in exchange or involving me in the most elementary aspects of this crazy scheme. Maybe I won't like this house on Dover Street, but that won't matter to you, will it?'  
  
Draco raked a hand through his white-blonde hair, looking somewhat nonplussed. 'Why would it matter what the house is like? It's only a temporary accommodation. The situation is good, it has decent-sized rooms, the furniture is unobjectionable There's a suite of rooms that I imagine will suit your father very well,' he added. 'Compared with where he finds himself at present, almost anything would be an improvement.'  
  
Ginny couldn't argue with this. She took another tactic. 'Don't you imagine my family would expect to witness the only daughter's wedding?'  
  
'That is a difficulty,' he conceded. 'But I'm sure we could overcome it when the time came.'  
  
He regarded her closely. 'Don't make difficulties just for the sake of it Virginia. Either you agree to accept my direction with this play, or we bring it to a close now. It won't work if you pull against me.'  
  
Ginny stared into the fire, reluctantly acknowledging that the scheme was his and it was only reasonable he should have the direction of it. It was his manner of doing so that offended her.  
  
'Look at it this way,' he said, coming over to her catching her chin in his palm and lifting her face. 'If this marriage were not counterfeit, you would be obliged by law and the Church to accept the direction and authority of your husband. This situation is the same, only the reasons for it are a little different.'  
  
There was a teasing note in his voice, but dark currents swirled beneath the calm surface of his eyes as he held her gaze. She could see herself reflected in the dark irises and could imagine herself slipping beneath the surface into the vortex of those currents, losing herself in the tide of passion that they promised.  
  
'You are beautiful, Virginia Weasley.' He ran his thumb over her mouth, his expression now grave. 'I wonder if you know how beautiful you are.'  
  
Ginny shivered, lost in the honeyed warmth of his voice, the luminous glow of his eyes. The press of his fingers on her skin seemed intrinsic to her flesh. She moved her hand to grasp his wrist, feeling his pulse beating strong and steady beneath her fingers.  
  
'Cry peace, Virginia,' he said softly.  
  
She nodded. 'Peace.'  
  
He smiled and bent to take her mouth with his own, and a dizzying flood of memory washed over her, her body awakened to recollected sensation. She inhaled the scent of his skin, tasted again the sweetness of his mouth, and her nipples rose hard and her loins burned. Her fingers tightened on his wrist, and she half rose from her chair in her instinctive need to press her body to his.  
  
At this inopportune moment there was a knock at the door, and he drew back, releasing her face. 'All in good time, sweeting.' He moved casually away from her as Tabitha came in.  
  
She offered Ginny a smile and a curtsy. 'I'll be settin' the table now.'  
  
At least one person in this den of thieves could treat her with civility. Ginny returned Tabitha's smile and sat back in her chair, trying to recapture her composure. She glanced at the clock, feeling like a small child eagerly waiting for some promised treat, unable to sit still, wanting to ask every few minutes, 'Is it time yet?'  
  
She kept her seat while dinner was set upon the table. Draco, leaning against the mantelpiece, carried on an easy exchange with Bessie and Ben.  
  
'There, now.' Bessie surveyed the laden table with a nod of satisfaction. 'An I'll 'ave the fire started in your chamber straightaway. I daresay ye'll be wantin' to repair there shortly.' She cast a dour glance at the still and silent Ginny.  
  
Draco made no response beyond a faint inclination of his head, and the two left the room.  
  
'Come to the table, Miss Weasley.' Draco drew out her chair. 'I venture to think that Bessie's dinner will surpass anything Ron Weasley could produce.'  
  
'Ron makes a very tasty steak and kidney pudding,' Ginny said loftily, taking her seat. She smiled up at him, and he ran his palm over her head.  
  
'I believe if you don't object too strongly, that I shall undo your hair.'  
  
Startled, she touched the heavy plait on her shoulder. 'Now?'  
  
'Yes,' he said matter-of-factly, deftly extricating hairpins. 'There, now that's much better.' He combed his fingers through the glowing red mane, spreading it over her shoulders before taking his own seat opposite.  
  
'Is there anything else?' Ginny inquired. Taking shelter from renewed confusion in irony. 'Perhaps you'd like to unbutton my top. or remove my stockings. or-'  
  
'All of that shortly,' he interrupted, leaning over to fill her wineglass. 'As yet I haven't decided whether I wish you to do those things for yourself, or whether I wish to do them for you.'  
  
'Bloody hell!' Ginny muttered, dropping a serving spoon into the dish of lampreys.  
  
'Do you think it will snow again?' Draco inquired politely.  
  
'I trust not,' she replied, her voice quivering with laughter. 'May I pass you the lampreys?'  
  
'If you please.' He helped himself, then said, 'I had thought we would appear to solemnize our marriage on Saturday, unless you have some other more pressing engagement.'  
  
Ginny swallowed a lamprey whole. 'Uh. uh, I don't believe so.'  
  
'Then we can take up residence as a married couple in Dover Street that evening.'  
  
'Yes,' agreed Ginny. So soon! No time to prepare her father for this extraordinary change of circumstance. But she couldn't manage to worry about such a detail at the moment. She would have to help settle Ron in his new house close to Harry and redeem everything that Jebediah still held in pawn- but she couldn't worry about that at the moment either.  
  
'I'll advance you sufficient funds to settle all your outstanding debts at home,' Draco said calmly, slicing the neat's tongue.  
  
How did he always read her thoughts? Ginny dismissed the question as easily as she'd dismissed every other concern in the last half hour. Vaguely, she wondered how he was going to fund this enterprise now that he didn't have his inheritance and then nonchalantly dismissed that question as well. Draco was navigating this ship, following his own charts. She had nothing to do but swing the helm at his direction.  
  
'Do you care for the opera?' her companion inquired with polite interest.  
  
'Except for Mital,' Ginny responded without missing a beat. 'I detest Mital.'  
  
'You perhaps find him a little heavy,' her companion agreed solemnly, carving the venison. 'But one must be seen at the opera. We should definitely hire a box for the season.'  
  
'Oh, most definitely. But I prefer the theatre. I once saw Garrick perform as Hamlet on Muggle television.'  
  
'His death was a great loss to the stage,' Draco said, laying a slice of venison on her platter.  
  
Throughout dinner he maintained an easy flow of inconsequential small talk. At first Ginny thought he was simply playing a game, but then it occurred to her that he was testing her to see if she could hold her own in Ministry circles.  
  
'So have I passed?' Ginny inquired, after Tabitha had removed the dishes for the first course and placed a platter of cheese cakes with a bowl of apples on the table.  
  
Draco smiled, peeling an apple in one unbroken spiral. 'Passed what?'  
  
'You know perfectly well.'  
  
He leaned over to place the peeled apple on her plate. 'Northumberland and Shoreditch are perhaps not the most obvious classrooms for training future Ministry Socialites.'  
  
'Northumberland society has its refinements,' she observed mildly, nibbling on an apple quarter.  
  
'And I should imagine you rarely need to be told anything twice,' he reflected. 'Are you easy about moving in these circles?'  
  
'Perfectly.' She sipped her wine and met his gaze candidly.  
  
He nodded and pushed back his chair. 'Then shall we adjourn and move to the most serious lesson of the evening, Miss Weasley?'  
  
A little chill ran down her spine. 'Of course, you would teach me the tricks of seduction so that I can use them on Lucius.'  
  
'No,' he corrected quietly. 'No, I would rather teach you to take your own pleasure even as you give it.'  
  
He came round behind her and pulled her chair out.  
  
Cupping her elbows, he lifted her to her feet and turned her to face him. His eyes had darkened, smoky with passion, his mouth a taut line, and she could feel the tension thrumming in his body held so close to hers.  
  
'I want you, Virginia,' he murmured. 'Only you and just for yourself.'  
  
Ginny touched her tongue to her dry lips. Her skin was hot as if she were in the grip of fever. 'Show me these things,' she whispered. 'This time I will know what's happening.'  
  
Something flickered across his eyes, a shadow remarkably like regret, and then it was gone, as thought it never had been. 'Come.'  
  
He took her hand and led her through the passageway into the bedchamber. He closed the door and locked it. Ginny stood in the middle of the room, feeling awkward and uncertain, as shy as any virgin on her wedding night. She was no virgin, but the dream loving had not prepared her for this sense of deliberation, for the intent she saw in his eyes as he came toward her with a springing, eager step.  
  
He took her hands and chafed them. 'Are you cold?'  
  
She shrugged helplessly. 'Cold. hot. both. I don't know.' Suddenly, she withdrew her hands from his and said in a rush, 'I feel shy and stupid because I don't know what to do. Shall I take off my clothes?'  
  
He smiled. 'I should like you to do that.' Crossing to the fire, he propped his shoulders against the mantelpiece, watching her.  
  
She felt Draco's eyes on her, although she couldn't for the life of her look up at him. She sat down on the edge of the bed to pull of her shoes, and then stood up again. Swiftly she unzipped her skirt and let it slip to her feet. Pulled her top over her. Beneath she only had her bra and underpants. She hesitated for a second, then with grim determination, unhooked the bra and stepped out of her underpants, dropping them both on the floor.  
  
She turned to face him, keeping her hands at her sides, resisting the urge to shield the private parts of her body. 'So?' She lifted her chin, meeting her gaze with an odd defiance.  
  
'So,' he said softly, pushing himself off the mantelpiece and coming toward her. 'So, Miss Weasley.' He placed his hands on her shoulders and ran his palms down her arms to her wrists. Her skin prickled as if little tongues of fire rippled in the wake of the caress  
  
'Would you like me to do for you what you've done for me?' he asked, smiling, his eyes roaming the length of her body, and those same tongues of fire licked every inch of her skin as his gaze moved over her.  
  
'It might even things up a little,' Ginny said, trying to respond with a light insouciance, but her voice didn't sound in the least like her own.  
  
'Come to the fire.' He drew her into the warmth, away from the needling drafts from the window.  
  
Ginny was aware of the heat of the fire on her back, the corresponding coolness on her front. She could feel her nipples prickling as they hardened, whether with the chill of her own nakedness, or what she watching, she couldn't guess.  
  
Draco removed his clothes with an air of deliberation, and remembered the other time when she'd watched him in disbelief as he'd undressed in front of her as coolly as if she weren't there. But this time it was for her.  
  
As he removed each article, he placed it carefully on the cedar chest at the foot of the bed. He turned away from her as he shrugged off his shirt, and she saw the muscles ripple across his shoulders and down the lean powerful back. Her gaze clung to the shape of his hips and buttocks outlined in his pants, the muscular swell of his thighs as he bent to pull of his shoes. Barely breathing, listened to the clunk as he unfastened his belt. His hands move at his waist, and then he pushed both pants and underpants off his hips, stepping out of both garments in one fluid movement.  
  
Ginny examined his naked rear view. the way his broad back tapered into the slender waist and slim hips. She absorbed the neat muscularity of his bottom, the rock-hard thighs and calves. She had only an imperfect image of her own back view, but she was convinced it bore little resemblance to this pared down masculine version.  
  
He seemed to be giving her ample time for scrutiny, enough time to not the tiny mole in the small of his back, the dusting of light hair along his spine, creeping into the narrow cleft of his buttocks, the dark mark intertwined on his left arm, enough time for the examination to bring a flush to her cheeks and a quiver of excitement to her belly.  
  
And then he turned to face her. He stood still, a half smile playing on his lips, as he offered himself for her gaze. Her eyes flew over the hard chest, the flat belly, and fixed upon his erect flesh. With six brothers she had never looked upon such a thing, but her own body remembered the aching joy as that shaft had penetrated her own flesh, moved within her, capturing some essence of her self that belonged only to the exquisite joining of bodies.  
  
She took a tentative step towards him, but he moved quickly, taking them both closer to the fires warmth. He held her close against him, so that their skins touched at every point and his erection pulsed hard against her belly. Her breasts were pressed against his chest, and she could feel his heart beating as she could feel her own like a crazed bird taking off on some mad flight.  
  
He ran his hands, down her back, stroking the indentation on her waits, sliding round to cup her bottom. His smiling mouth kissed hers, a light, tantalizing brush that made her lips tingle.  
  
'I would like to look at you,' he said.  
  
'I thought you just did.' Her responding smile was tremulous as she placed her hands on his shoulders.  
  
'Not as I would have wanted. You seemed uncomfortable.'  
  
'Well its not a situation that I'm familiar with,' she said candidly.  
  
Smiling, he stepped back from her, taking her hands and holding them away from her body as his gaze swept in a long, leisurely caress down her length. His eyes burned into her has it they would brand her. He let her hands drop to her sides and placed his palms, fingertips flicking lightly at her nipples.  
  
'This pleases you,' he stated. He licked his forefinger and ran it damply down the cleft between her breasts. Ginny shuddered, the sharply defined edges of reality, of their surroundings, wavering as every part of her responded to what he was doing to her.  
  
His finger dipped into her navel, then tracked a path over her belly. The delicate probe slid between her thighs, and her breath came swift as her body jumped at the exquisite teasing touch. He cupped the mound of her sex in his warm palm, and his fingers danced over the sensitive bud until she could hear her moans in the quiet room as if coming from a great distance and having nothing to do with herself. A wave of sensation so intense she lost ever grip on reality, crashed over her, engulfing her, and she would have slipped to her knees if he hadn't held her to him with a tight encircling arm.  
  
'Bloody hell!' she muttered, hanging limply against his as her yes focused again and the room came back. 'What happened?'  
  
Draco chuckled richly. 'You exquisitely sensitive, sweet. I barely touched you.'  
  
She looked up at him. 'Could I do something like that for you?'  
  
'Oh, yes.'  
  
Ginny straightened her still wobbly knees and looked down at his body. His arousal seemed to beg for her touch, and she held him gently, exploratively, curling her fingers, feeling the blood pulsing in the corded veins. 'Like this?'  
  
'Like that.'  
  
She allowed her fingers to roam, to reach further, to stroke the hard globes. When she looked up at him, she saw that his eyes were closed, his head thrown back, his mouth curved with pleasure. He'd said he would show her how to give as well as receive the sensual joys of the bedroom, and she found she was deriving the greatest satisfaction from feeling his pleasure with her fingertips, hearing his breathing quicken, feeling the dampness of his skin as she rested her cheek against his chest while the shaft of his flesh flickered against her caressing hand with a life of its own.  
  
'Stop now!' His voice was a husky rasp of urgency, and he reached down to seize her hands, drawing them away from him. He carried her to the bed, where, holding her against one upraised knee, he pulled back the covers.  
  
He dropped her gently onto the bed and came down with her, leaning on one elbow beside her as he stroked her body, a thoughtful look in his eye. 'You have the most beautiful body. So rich and yet so delicate.'  
  
He bent to kiss the fast-beating pulse at her throat, and then his mouth fastened on her nipple, his tongue flickering upward, his lips tugging at the rosy crown, creating a responding tug in her belly and loins, setting loose a rampaging surge of inexpressible need. Urgently, she pulled him over her, stretching her body beneath him, her skin adhering to his, the ridged muscles of his thighs pressing into her own softer flesh.  
  
'It's too soon,' he whispered in soft protest.  
  
'No. no,' he reiterated firmly, lifting her hips, curling her legs around his waist. 'No, it's not too soon. I want it now!'  
  
He laughed, but his eyes were on fire, the contours of his face smudged with his own desperate desire. And then he was inside her, and it was both as it had been in her dream and quite different. This time her eyes were open in the candlelit room, her gaze fixed on the face above her, seeing the harsh planes of his face softening as his pleasure built, the tautness of his mouth as he struggled to hold back, the corded veins in his neck, arched with effort. Her hands ran up his arms, cupping the hard swell of her biceps supporting his weight.  
  
This time when the waves of her own greedy hunger built in her loins, she felt the glorious urgency in every fibre, in every pulse of her brain. They gathered strength with each deeply penetrating thrust of his flesh until she seemed to burst asunder in a shower of sparks and she heard her cry ring through the room the instant before his mouth fastened on hers. Vaguely she was aware that he'd left her body, but his length, was measured along hers and she held him to her, linking her arms around his back in a fierce embrace as the sparks settled and her body re-formed.  
  
Now she became aware of the mattress beneath her, her own sweat mingling with his, his weight crushing her breasts, hammering her into the deep feather bed. Glorious languor flooded her, turning her limbs to butter. Her arms fell away from him, the tension in her thighs and buttocks was abruptly released, and she sank deeper into her nest, her eyes closing as her heart slowed.  
  
Draco kissed her eyelids, the tip of her nose, the corner of her mouth; then with a groan he rolled sideways onto the bed.  
  
She stretched a hand to pat his stomach in the only expression of recognition she could manage. After a minute she said with a great effort, 'You withdrew from me in the last second.'  
  
'You were so impatient, sweet, I didn't have time to put on the condom.'  
  
But of course, Ginny thought. Pregnancy would certainly ruin their plans. or at least her share in them.  
  
It was a cold little niggle of grim reality that had no place in the warm, satiated languor of the present. She banished it easily, and as Draco thrust an arm beneath her, she turned her head into his shoulder and slid into sleep.  
  
Next Chapter  
  
It was pitch dark when Draco awoke from a light doze and inched soundlessly from the bed, moving so carefully he barely disturbed the bedcovers. A slight glow from the fire's embers provided an inkling of illumination, and he padded to the armoire, listening to Ginny's deep even breathing from the uncurtained bed.  
  
In ten minuted he was dressed. He threw a heavy black cloak around his shoulders, took up a dark hat and his gloves, and walked softly to the door. He unlocked the door with the utmost caution. Then he opened the door just wide enough to slide sideways through the aperture and then drew it shut behind him.  
  
Ginny sat up the minute she heard the faint click of the closing latch. What was going on here? What was he doing? 


	10. Chapter Nine

Chapter Eight 6 am, day after Christmas I throw some clothes on in the dark The Smell of cold Car seat is freezing The world is sleeping I am numb Up the Stairs, to her apartment She is Balled up on the couch Her mom and dad went down to Charlotte They're not home to find us out And We drive Now that I have found someone I'm feeling more alone Than I ever have before She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly Off the coast and I'm heading nowhere She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly They call her name at 7:30 I pace around the parking lot I walk down, to buy her flowers And sell gifts that I got Can't you see It's not me you're dying for Now she's feeling more alone Than she ever has before She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly Off the coast and I'm heading nowhere She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly As weeks went by It showed that she was not fine They told me "Son, It's time To tell the truth" and She broke down And I broke down Cause I was tired, of lying Driving back, to her apartment For the moment we're alone and she's alone and I'm alone now I know it She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly Off the coast and I'm heading nowhere She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly -Brick by Ben folds five  
  
It was pitch dark when Draco awoke from a light doze and inched soundlessly from the bed, moving so carefully he barely disturbed the bedcovers. A slight glow from the fire's embers provided an inkling of illumination, and he padded to the armoire, listening to Ginny's deep even breathing from the uncurtained bed.  
  
In ten minutes he was dressed. He threw a heavy black cloak around his shoulders, took up a dark hat and his gloves, and walked softly to the door. He unlocked the door with the utmost caution. Then he opened the door just wide enough to slide sideways through the aperture and then drew it shut behind him.  
  
Ginny sat up the minute she heard the faint click of the closing latch. What was going on here? What was he doing?  
  
She leaped from the bed, dragging the coverlet around her, and ran to the door, stubbing her toe on the leg of a stool as she weaved through the darkness. Cursing under her breath, she eased open the door and stepped into the corridor, where a tallow candle in a wall sconce threw a dim, shadowy light. She tiptoed down the corridor until she reached the head of the stairs.  
  
Draco was talking quietly in the hall below. Ben's voice answered him, but so low she couldn't make out the words. They spoke hastily and then moved out of the hall into the kitchen.  
  
Ginny raced back to the bedchamber and stood at the window, pressing her face to the glass, looking down into the stable-yard. A lantern glimmered below, its light swinging across the cobbles, providing a small oasis in the surrounding blackness. The sky was thick with cloud, blocking out both stars and moonlight, but in the faint puddle of golden light she could discern Draco and Ben, still deep in conversation. Then Ben moved away toward the stables, carrying a torch, leaving Draco in darkness.  
  
Ginny stared stupidly down into the black yard, unable to make any sense of what she was seeing. Then Ben reappeared, carrying a broom.  
  
Ginny flew to the armoire. She fumbled through the garments and found a pair of jeans and a shirt, and ran to the window with them. Keeping her eyes fixed upon the scene in the yard, she dragged on the jeans, rolled up the legs until they cleared her ankles, shrugged into the shirt, and then looked around for a belt. She found the one Draco had discarded earlier. and eternity ago. and cinched it around her waist. The last buckle hole was too loose, but she tied the leather roughly together. It held up the jeans but made a most inelegant muddle around the middle.  
  
Below, Draco had straddled the broom. As she pulled on her shoes, Ginny could just make out a wand hanging out of Draco's pocket.  
  
Draco leaned down, took Ben's hand and shook it briefly; then the broom sprang forward beneath him, disappearing into the darkness over the gate. Ben turned back to the inn with his torch.  
  
Ginny knew now what was happening. Lord Lucifer was taking to the road. She grabbed her cloak and gloves and left the chamber, closing the door behind her. At the head of the stairs she stopped, listening to see if she could hear Ben moving around below. A line of light showed beneath the closed door to the taproom.  
  
He came out of the kitchen and went into the taproom. Voices swelled as the door opened, then faded as he closed it behind him.  
  
Ginny ran down the stairs. In the deserted kitchen, lit only by the fire still burning in the great fireplace, she unlocked the back door and slipped out into the stable yard. She flitted across to the stables, a dark shadow in the deep gloom. Draco had ridden out on a broom. It was reasonable to assume that it was not the only broom present. Despite the fact it was a Muggle establishment.  
  
She could see nothing inside the stable, although the shuffling of hooves in straw and the occasional whicker told of more then one horse bedded down there. A torch hung from a hook just inside the door, flint, tinder and a lantern beside it. It was a risk she had to take if she was to find another broom. Cursing herself for not having brought her wand, she pushed the rubber button and the torch through long shadows on the wooden walls.  
  
The beasts in the stalls moved restlessly as she walked down the length of the building, looking for another of Draco's brooms, her heart thudding in terror as she imagined Ben, or someone even more terrifying, bursting in on her. She was there on sufferance, protected only by Draco's interest, an interest that would extend even in his absence to his own apartments; but once she ventured out of that protected territory, she could well be seen as fair game.  
  
The broom was in the last stall. A 'Firebolt Cougar,' she thought almost reverently. She lifted it carefully and slung it over her shoulder and walked quickly back through the building. She turned off the torch before opening the door to the yard and then hauled herself astride the brooms back. Once mounted, her terror faded. The entire tribe gathered in the taproom could burst forth in pursuit, but no one on foot could stop her now.  
  
She nudged the floor with her heels and directed the broom over the gate. Once in the street, her heart took an exultant leap. She knew which way Draco would have gone. She pulled up the broom, guiding it up the hill to the heath. The broom was steady as she guessed it was the best of the best.  
  
Urging the broom faster as they reached the top of the hill and the black expanse of Putney Heath stretched to all sides. The thin ribbon of the road glimmered ahead of her, winding its way into the darkness. On all sides gnarled trunks and twisted branches bent to the wind, whistling in fierce gusts across the flat heath.  
  
It was an eerie, inhospitable place, the sky so black it seemed to have swallowed all light. Only the road provided orientation, and Ginny drew the broom onto the gorse-strewn turf beside it.  
  
She listened but could only hear the creaking of branches, the wail of the wind, the hoot of an owl. Draco would not be far from the road. He would be waiting somewhere along that ribbon for his unsuspecting prey. Cautiously, she nudged the broom forward, and the broom obeyed almost reluctantly, hovering through the air as if scenting danger looming out of the darkness.  
  
Suddenly the air was rent with a shriek of such pain and terror that Ginny's heart stopped dead, and the broom reared. Ginny clung on to the stick and wound her fingers onto it, sweat beading her forehead despite the bitter cold. The shriek reaching a crescendo and then died away. She began to breathe again, recognizing the sound as the death cry of some small animal fallen prey to a fox or an owl. But it did nothing to make the heath more reassuring.  
  
Gingerly, the broom moved forward, keeping close to the turf beside the road. A stand of silver birch trees took shape ahead, their bark white in the darkness. Broom and rider drew level with the trees.  
  
She didn't see the thing snaking out of the darkness behind her. She heard nothing until with a faint snap the whip curled around her body, wrapping twice around her, securing her in the heavy folds of her cloak. She felt no pain, but her mouth opened to scream of shock that died in her throat as his voice spoke into her ear, 'Not a sound!'  
  
Ginny swallowed the scream and sat still, her arms imprisoned in her cloak, only her hands free, uselessly clutching the broom stick.  
  
Ginny turned her head. The other broom's black shrouded rider regarded her in silence. His eyes were grey slits behind a black silk mask, and he wore a black silk scarf knotted loosely around his neck. He flicked his wrist with the wand, the whip uncurled, snaked through the air to be caught and coiled in one deft movement and disappeared.  
  
Suddenly Draco became very still, his head cocked. Ginny froze.  
  
Then she heard it, the faint rumble of tyres on the bitumen coming out of the darkness around the curve in the road ahead.  
  
'Move into the trees.' His voice was as quiet as the grave, his eyes almost without expression as they rested on her face, by Ginny could no more have imagined disobeying the instruction then she could have stood up in an avalanche. She urged the broom backward into the stand of silver birch until they were out of sight of the road.  
  
Draco drew the silk scarf up over his mouth as he sat his horse beside the road. Then both horse and rider became totally still. Ginny strained eyes and ears into the darkness. She could just make out the shape of the man, the rattle of wheels; the rush of the engine grew louder. The car was coming at a fair clip. Now she could hear the crack of a whip, the voice of the driver urging on his car midst sleep as they approached the bend and the stand of the trees.  
  
The driver's frantic urgency seemed to indicate that he knew he was approaching some notorious point of ambush. The hair on her nape lifted, and a shiver of apprehension ran down her spine.  
  
The car lumbered around the corner, the driver looking out of his window as the wheels pounded upon the road, sending up a shower of gravel and larger stones.  
  
Leisurely Draco moved into the road. He raised his wand and a blaze of fire ran over the team's head. The driver cursed vilely and within the vehicle a shrill scream ensued, followed by a confused babble of voices.  
  
Draco remained where he was in the middle of the road as the driver fought with those inside, and the car at last came to a screeching halt.  
  
'I won't keep you long, gentlemen,' Draco said casually. His voice, despite the silk scarf over his mouth, carried on the still air, but to Ginny it didn't sound like the voice she knew. He was speaking with a faint but unmistakable foreign accent, and the timbre was higher, more musical. She listened and watched fascinated despite cold chill of naked terror.  
  
'Would you throw down your gun, sir?' he requested the driver politely. 'And if you two gentlemen would throw down your pistols also.'  
  
The coachman cursed him, but the three weapons thudded to the ground.  
  
'Thank you.'  
  
'Robert. Robert, do something!' shrilled a female voice from within the car. 'You great lump, sitting there like a tub of lard! We're being held up! It's a highwayman!'  
  
'Yes, my dear,' returned a weary voice. 'I know.'  
  
'Then do something! What are you? A man or a mouse? Protect my honour!'  
  
'I sincerely doubt your honour is in danger, my dear.' There was a muffled thump, a resigned sigh, and then slowly the car door swung open.  
  
A thin gentleman stepped out, fumbling with the gun at his waist. He looked up rather helplessly at the man sitting atop his broom.  
  
'You. you thief. I'll see you electrocuted before I give you a cent!' he declared with remarkable lack of conviction.  
  
'My dear sir, I assure you I'm not in the least bit interested in your money,' Draco said calmly. 'But I do beg you not to trouble with your gun, it will only lead to unpleasantness.'  
  
The man regarded him in frank bewilderment, his hand resting on the hilt of his half-drawn gun. 'Not interested?'  
  
'No, sir,' the highwayman said pleasantly. 'Not in anything of yours. Sheathe your gun if you please.'  
  
'La, Robert! What're you doing out there? Have you killed him yet?' A florid face appeared in the window of the coach, a towering hat swaying perilously above. 'Bloody hell, man, what good are you?' she declared in disgust, taking in the scene. 'I could have been robbed and raped by now. Kill him, I tell you. Do it this minute.'  
  
'Yes, my dear. but it's a little difficult, you see.' The thin man, his hand still on his sword hilt, continued to gaze helplessly up at the figure atop the broom. 'He's on a broom, you see,' he offered in desperate explanation.  
  
'La, I can see that, you idiot!' The door crashed open, and a mountainous figure swathed in crimson velvet descended. 'Give me that gun!' She grabbed for it. 'I'll defend myself you great oaf!'  
  
'Forgive me, ma'am, but you have nothing to defend,' Draco said, his eyes now alight with laughter but his voice as steady as before. 'Pray, return to your car.'  
  
'Don't talk to me like that, you murdering thief!' With a great wrench the lady managed to pull the gun out of the sheath with a jerk that sent the hilt crashing into the chin of the unfortunate gentleman, who fell back, tripped over a stone in the road, and sat down with a weary little sigh that sounded like air escaping from a feather pillow.  
  
'Now, you bastard! Attack a defenceless woman, would you?' Her large frame lumbered towards him with a movement reminiscent of a dancing elephant. She flourished the gun wildly.  
  
A long whip magically appeared and snapped, curling around the hilt of the gun, effortlessly lifting it from her grasp. Then the gun fell to the road with a large clatter.  
  
Draco leaned low over his broom and scooped up the gun from the road, saying mildly, 'I trust I didn't hurt you, madam. Now, perhaps you'd return to the car.' A touch of flint entered his voice at this point, and the woman stared at him, her jaw slack, her previously florid complexion now as white as whey.  
  
Her husband scrambled to his feet, dusting off his coat. 'Best do as he says, my dear.' He touched her arm with a placating hand.  
  
'Coward!' she spat at the poor unfortunate, jerking her arm away. With a swish of her skirt she climbed back into the car.  
  
'Sir?' Draco gestured in her wake. 'I can see how you might find it more peaceful out here, but I'm afraid I must insist.'  
  
The gentleman glanced over his shoulder at the coach, then, with a resigned shrug, followed his wife into the interior. Draco dismounted, still holding the gun, and leaned through the window. A small man in a dark-brown suit sat trembling in the corner, trying to make himself invisible.  
  
The woman sat on the edge of the seat, for the moment mercifully silent, fanning herself with her gloves. When she saw Draco in the window, she hissed like a serpent, waving one pudgy hand, where a massive emerald winked among the folds of flesh.  
  
'I'd give you my body sooner than let you have my rings. bastard!'  
  
'Fortunately for us both, ma'am, I require neither,' Draco returned in a voice as dry as the Sahara.  
  
'You. you. you!' she exclaimed. 'Do something, Robert.'  
  
'Oh, hold your tongue, Cornelia,' begged the long-suffering Robert, finally pushed beyond caution.  
  
'Bravo, sir,' Draco applauded as the outraged Cornelia gobbled like a turkey. He leaned farther into the coach and politely addressed the man shrinking in the corner.  
  
'Would you be so good as to pass me that leather satchel beneath your set, sir?'  
  
At this the little man sat up and stared at Draco as if he were looking upon Ursula herself. 'How. how.?'  
  
'Never mind how, my dear sir,' the wizard said. 'If you would just pass it across to me, then you may all be on your way again. It's an inhospitable night to be travelling, I can't think what you were thinking of.'  
  
'Oh, I said we should have stayed overnight at the Whale and Pipe.' Cornelia recovered her tongue. 'But you wouldn't listen!'  
  
'But, my dear ma'am, you were adamant we must reach the city tonight,' her husband exclaimed. 'I tried to point out the folly of crossing the heat late at night but-'  
  
'Oh, you hold your tongue!' Cornelia swiped at him with her reticule. 'Don't you dare argue with me. Your memory is like a sieve, and you have the gall to tell me that I'm mistaken.'  
  
Draco closed his ears as the tirade increased in volume. He took the leather satchel from the trembling passenger and withdrew his head from the window.  
  
'To your left!' Ginny's yell cut through the night. He whirled, just in time to see one of the men grabbing up a pistol from the road.  
  
Draco sprang forward; the silver gun in his hand flashed in the dark as the bullet sprung forth, leaving one of the men dropping the pistol with a cry of pain. He fell back against the coach, clutching his hand.  
  
'Stupid!' Draco declared bluntly, kicking all three weapons into the bushed beside the road. 'You!' He beckoned another man. 'Bind your friend's hand, quickly!'  
  
Draco remounted the broom while the lad slunk over to his wounded fellow and wound his handkerchief around the bleeding hand. Draco then cast a large Obliviate charm eradicating all memory of the Wizarding world. Draco waited until the men were back in the car, and the driver once more behind the wheel. Then he moved himself off the roadway.  
  
'Carry on.' The man needed no second invitation, the engine whizzed and the car plunged forward. Raising his hat, Draco bowed with a flourish as the car passed him, and the face of Cornelia, scarlet with fury, filled the window aperture.  
  
As the car thundered out of earshot, Ginny emerged from the trees. She was convulsed with an almost hysterical laughter and wiped at her streaming eyes with the back of her hand.  
  
'The poor man!' she gasped.  
  
'Yes, one's heart bleeds,' Draco agreed dryly pulling the silk scarf away from his mouth. Reaching behind him with one hand, he unfastened the mask and thrust it into the pocket of his caped cloak. Then he regarded Ginny steadily.  
  
'Would you mind telling me just exactly what you think your doing?'  
  
'Ah,' said Ginny. 'Well, to be brutally honest, thinking didn't really come into it.'  
  
'No.,' he said musingly, stroking his chin. 'No, I suppose it didn't, because if by some miracle you had given the matter an instant's reflection, you would not be here. Would you?'  
  
'Well I don't know about that,' Ginny returned. 'It seems to me that id I hadn't been, you might be lying with a bullet in your head at this point.'  
  
'Possibly. I'll take it into account, but I can't promise that my gratitude for your sharp eyes will weight too heavily in the scale. I have little tolerance for interference in my affairs.'  
  
He turned his broom onto the heath away from the road before Ginny could respond. 'Follow me closely.' He dug his heels against the wooden sides, and the broom took off, a pale shape fast disappearing into the darkness.  
  
Her broom flew after him. Ginny concentrated on keeping her seat over the rough frozen ground, which the broom negotiated with the expertise of Magical knowledge.  
  
A silver moon appeared between scudding clouds, throwing a cold, pale light over the black figure of Draco, sparking off his hair's shimmering silver fire. All around, trees and scrawny bushes rattled in the wind, dark haunched shapes across the flat ground.  
  
Ginny had no idea where they were going as they plunged farther into the heath, leaving the road to fires and warm beds and mugs of warm milk behind. She had no idea of the time, except that the moon, when it showed itself was high. How many hours ago had she been locked in a lustful tangle of limbs with the man riding ahead of her? A man who now seemed a frightening stranger leading her through an alien landscape that only he understood. A man she had agreed to partner in a diabolical enterprise of fraud and thievery and seduction. An agreement that in this cold, dark hour of the night struck her as insane.  
  
Draco's broom wheeled to the right and flew down a small hill. She followed, and at the bottom Ginny found herself on a narrow, rutted country lane. She heaved a sigh of relief at this return to some semblance of the ordinary world, but Draco's pace didn't slow and she followed stolidly in his wake. They rode through a night-closed hamlet and approached a tiny stone cottage standing by itself some half a mile farther along the lane. A light glowed in the downstairs window.  
  
Draco slowed and turned to the back of the cottage, where he flew without hesitation through the open door of a long, low outbuilding. She followed and found herself in a dark stable, the frigid air heavy with the sweet scent of hay.  
  
'All well, Luke?' Ben's voice spoke out of the darkness. Ginny jumped, totally disorientated. Where in hell were they?  
  
'Bloody hell!' Ben exclaimed softly, making out the second rider behind Lord Luke. 'Ow d'she get 'ere?'  
  
'Good question.' Draco swung of his broom. 'And one I intend to have answered quickly.' He lifted the leather satchel down from the saddle, and his teeth flashed white in the dark as he grinned. 'Morris is worth his weight in gold, Ben.'  
  
'Fat pickin's then?' Ben took Draco's broom.  
  
'Oh, yes, I believe so.' Draco slung the satchel over his shoulder and came over to Ginny. 'I'll leave you to put the broom back in it's initial state, Miss Morgan. Ben has made preparations for only one broom. You'll find wax and a towel in the corner. Put it in the end stall and clean it well. Don't forget to throw a blanket over it for prying eyes.' With that he strolled out of the room, whistling between his teeth.  
  
Ginny accepted her responsibility with a shrug. If Draco expected her to react with irritation to his orders, he would be disappointed. She swung herself down. 'Can't we have a torch in here, Ben?'  
  
'No,' was the uncompromising response.  
  
Clearly not a man willing to engage in companionable discourse while they worked. Ginny peered around, her eyes gradually growing accustomed to the gloom. She lifted the broom to the end stall, listening to Ben singing to himself while cleaning.  
  
She rubbed the wax over the handle. 'Is there a cloth, Ben?'  
  
'Over yonder.'  
  
Yonder where? She looked around and found a torn strip of blanket hanging from a hook. She used it on the broom.  
  
Her arms were aching when she was finished; sweat beading her forehead despite the cold. Ben had finished with Draco's broom long before and had banged out of the stable with the curt instruction that she should make sure the door was bolted behind her when she left. She'd controlled the urge to consign him and his incivility to the devil and concentrated on finishing her task.  
  
She found a blanket thrown over the gate to the stall and tossed it over the broom. Then she braced herself to face what awaited her in the cottage.  
  
A flicker of candlelight showed in the single window at the rear end of the building. She pushed open the door and entered a square room that took up the entire ground floor. A narrow wooden staircase rose from the corner.  
  
Draco was sitting in a wooden chair before a blazing fire, his booted feet resting on a footrest. Ben sat in a similar chair beside him. Both men nursed pewter tankards, from which rose an aromatic steam. A copper pan simmered fragrantly on the hob.  
  
Ginny stood uncertainly at the door.  
  
'Close the door, Miss Weasley, its not midsummer.'  
  
Her li[s tightened and she kicked the door shut with her heel. She was now as chilled as she'd been heated with her stable exertions. The two chairs, a table and two stools provided the only furniture in the room, and yet it seemed a haven of warmth and comfort with the golden glow of the oil lamp on the table and the red spurting fire in the hearth.  
  
Resolutely, she walked over to the fire and bent to warm her hands. 'I thought you had a horse, not a broom,' she commented casually. 'Deceiving you could say.'  
  
'Do you think so?' he said with a careless shrug.  
  
'Yes, apparently a black horse. A devil's combination to tempt the fates,' she said.  
  
'One must spice one's life a little,' he said, keeping his eyes on the fire. 'You seem to understand the pleasures of courting danger, Miss Weasley.'  
  
'On the contrary, I don't believe in taking foolhardy risks with my neck.'  
  
'Ah.' He looked across at her then, that little mocking smile playing over his lips. 'And what do you think you've risked this evening, my dear Virginia?'  
  
'Not my neck,' she snapped back.  
  
He leaned back in the chair, rocking himself gently with one foot on the footrest. 'No, your neck's in no danger from me.'  
  
Ben chuckled into his tankard, and Ginny regarded him with undisguised dislike. 'Must we have this conversation in company?'  
  
'Oh, Ben isn't company. you are,' Draco declared. 'Ben is supposed to be here. You on the other hand, are not.'  
  
'Ben didn't save you from a bullet tonight.'  
  
'There is that.' He appeared to give this some judicious thought.  
  
'Looks like she's bin' raidin' yer wardrobe, Luke,' Ben observed. 'I niver seen the like!' He chuckled again and buried his nose in his tankard.  
  
'Good God!' For the first time Draco took in Ginny's garb beneath her cloak. 'Are those my pants you're wearing? If 'wearing' is the right word for whatever you've done to them.'  
  
'I could hardly find my own,' she retorted. 'I would have asked if you hadn't sneaked out like a snake in the grass.'  
  
'I hardly consider going about my private business to be sneaking like a snake,' he declared. 'And compared with making free with my clothes and my broom, it seems positively saintly behaviour.'  
  
Nonplussed, Ginny shifted the angle of the subject. 'You knew that the satchel would be in the car. What's in it?'  
  
'Rent rolls,' Draco said readily, stretching his feet to the fire. 'The Minister of Muggle Recreation's rent rolls. He's a stingy bastard, rich as a Croesus. He won't notice the loss except in his mean spirited soul.'  
  
'And that man who came to the Mermaids Tavern earlier? Morris. he told you about it?'  
  
'Precisely.' Draco smiled lazily. 'Morris spends a lot of his time in the taprooms around the heath. He keeps his ear to the ground to good purpose and overheard the Minister's servant trying to persuade his travelling companions to stay at the Whale and Pipe overnight, since he didn't wish to risk his precious cargo to the heath at midnight. Madam Cornelia, however, insisted on reaching town tonight.' He shrugged. 'So what could the poor fellow do? I'm convinced the lady was very persuasive.'  
  
Ginny was too intent of making sense of the night's work to smile. 'But why didn't you take anything from that ghastly woman and her husband?'  
  
Draco shook his head. 'It wasn't necessary. One mustn't be greedy. There's enough in that satchel to furnish you with a new wardrobe, even down to a pair of shoes with emerald studded heels and diamond buckles.'  
  
'Eh. what's that?' Ben demanded, emerging from his own languid trance with a jerk. 'She's in yer keepin' then, Luke?'  
  
'No, I am not!' Ginny declared, her eyes flashing tawny fire. 'We are embarked upon a joint enterprise. Isn't that right, Luke?'  
  
Draco laughed. 'Yes, it is, Virginia. There's no need to look daggers at me. Your integrity is in no way under challenge. But I'll give you one word of advice. Ben is the best friend a man could ever wish for, and in this joint enterprise you may need him as much as I do. Remember that.'  
  
'In that case, it might be well if he understands the true situation,' Ginny said tightly. 'I am in no way beholden to you, Lord Vlad.'  
  
'Only as far as a pair of Versace pants, a shirt and a Firebolt Cougar,' he murmured. 'Do you care for some milk?'  
  
It was such an abrupt change of subject Ginny merely blinked, although her stomach lurched with anticipation at the thought.  
  
Draco gestured indolently to the simmering pan on the hob. 'Help yourself. You'll find a tankard in the cupboard beside the mantel.'  
  
Ginny wasted no more time in pursuing contentious issues. If Draco was prepared to let bygones be bygones, then the least she could do was follow suit. She found the tankard and filled it with the creamy, fragrant contents of the pan. She hitched a stool over with her foot and sat down almost in the fireplace in her eagerness to get to the heat. The first sip made her knees weak. Someone knew how to make this drink to fell a grown man. The second sent her head spinning.  
  
The two men behind her rocked placidly, were sipping from their own tankards. The room began to lose its contours in the most delicious way, and the creeping languor started in her toes and inched upwards, turning muscle and sinew to butter. She swayed on her stool, smiling into the fire, taking another sip from the tankard. She swayed and leaned backward, finding a pair of legs perfectly positioned as a backrest; a pair of knees perfectly positioned to receive her head. A hand moved through her hair in a languid stroking motion that blended with the warm, smudgy feeling in her belly as she drained the tankard.  
  
'Such a busy night for a meddlesome little girl,' Draco stated, a rich laugh in his voice. Vaguely, Ginny felt she should protest such a statement, but she could find neither words nor energy- any more than she could resist when she was pulled upwards by her armpits and suddenly found herself dangling face down, sleepily gazing at the earthen floor.  
  
Draco's shoulder moved beneath her belly as he mounted the narrow staircase. It was cold as they left the fire, and she murmured in faint protest, but then she was lying down, sinking into feathers and smothered in quilts, a great weight of them, and the cold air became a warm seal around her body. Hands were on her, deftly stripping her naked under the covers so the cold air didn't touch her exposed skin.  
  
Vaguely she was aware of him sliding in beside her, his bare skin chilled by its brief exposure to the frigid air. She curled against him, sharing her own warmth as she fell asleep, her nose pressed to the now warm naked back, his scent invading her dreams.  
  
Two hours later  
  
Draco Apparated in front of his London townhouse. He took the steps two at a time. He was eager to end his tryst with Pansy, and the hassle with Virginia hadn't done his humour any benefit. Pansy knew how to soothe his ruffled temper.  
  
As he thrust open the door, she came running to greet him; her small, lithe figure was in his arms and she was kissing him, murmuring soft endearments. Waist length black hair hung over one shoulder, and he could smell its sweet fragrance and feel the smooth as silk skin as her arms twined around his neck.  
  
Pulling away from him, Pansy looked up at him from her diminutive height, staring at him with her mahogany dark eyes, her full moist lips parted over her dazzling white teeth. 'Come,' she said softly, her voice childlike, 'I will prepare you a cool drink.'  
  
'It's not a drink that I want, Pansy,' he whispered hoarsely, pulling her back to him.  
  
She giggled seductively, this woman that was more a child, and sighed seductively. 'Handsome Luke, tell Pansy what it is you want. Tell me, Luke,' she coaxed enticingly.  
  
'You little tease,' he answered huskily, a familiar surging need coursing through his body and seeming to centre in his nether regions.  
  
Playfully, she struggled away from him, skipping up the first few steps to the bedroom. Draco bounded after her in hot pursuit, laughing at her little game. This ritual never failed to amuse him.  
  
He followed her to the top of the stairs and saw article after article of clothing being thrown through the open doorway in accompaniment to her squeals of expectation.  
  
First her tiny slippers, and then her skirt- faster and faster the garments flew through the air. He dodged a high-flying top and marvelled at her agility in undressing herself so quickly.  
  
With the assault of clothing ended, he strode into the dimly lit bedroom on cue; it was cool from the shutters being drawn against the morning sun. His eyes adjusted to the half-light and found her laying atop the bed, waiting.  
  
Draco stood before her appraisingly, removing his shirt, deliberately fumbling with the buttons, watching her eagerness build. Through slitted eyes their gazes locked. His hands went to his straining trousers, his movements slow, watching, filling his senses with the sight and scent and anticipation of her.  
  
The pink tip of her tongue moistened her lips and, as always, he was struck by her beauty. Her lean supple body never failed to excite him her sensuous lips promised fulfilment; her oblique, almost oriental, eyes measured him knowingly, without coyness. Pansy recognized the impact her beauty had on him, and she capitalized on it.  
  
He stood before her, fully aroused, wanting her, enjoying the sight of her small uplifted breasts with their chocolate-coloured nipples. Pansy lowered her eyes and held her arms out for him.  
  
Later that morning  
  
Draco stood in front of his shaving stand, trying to avert his eyes from the reflection that bore startling resemblance to his enemy, his father. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Pansy's image in his shaving mirror. Her eyes were narrowed as she studied him. He steeled himself against her onslaught of questions; he had heard them so often. 'Is not Pansy pretty? Why can't I go with you? Are you ashamed of your Pansy?' And on and on she would whine, until he was dressed and ready to leave. At that point she would change her tactics for fear he would order her from his house, and she would once again become his sweet, undemanding Pansy.  
  
'I think maybe Pansy will be leaving.' A practiced sob caught in her throat.  
  
Draco turned to face her, angry at her words.  
  
Pansy's eyes were now mere slits. 'It is true. I think maybe Pansy will have to leave. My Luke has thoughts for another.'  
  
'What are you saying Pansy? I have no thoughts for another.' Even as he said the words, he knew he lied. It was true; their lovemaking had been clouded by his thoughts of Virginia. At one point he had almost moaned her name in his desire.  
  
'It is true. Luke has found another, I feel it here,' she said, dramatically touching her heart. 'Is it one of those milk-skinned, overfed ladies you see at the Ministry? No, Luke would not care for a fat lady. Perhaps,' she said shrewdly, 'it is the fire headed girl I have heard spoken of in the taverns.'  
  
Draco ignored her bid for reassurance. 'Enough, Pansy,' he said angrily.  
  
'It is,' she said whiningly. 'It is the fire girl! I knew it, I feel it. Now you will discard me like one of your dirty sheets.'  
  
Angry at this insight of his Hogwarts peer, Draco snatched up his jacket and strode from the room.  
  
Pansy followed him, small sobs catching in her throat. Anger welled up in him, and he felt the urge to slap her, to still the words that tumbled from her petulant mouth. Immediately, he was contrite and ashamed of the impulse. What's gotten into me? Have I gone mad? Within him beat the answer: Virginia Weasley.  
  
'I have business, Pansy. I'll be back this evening. Have something light for dinner. Perhaps we can go to the gardens tonight and dance. Would you like that?'  
  
He knew Pansy would like it. She was always begging him to take her out. 'Pansy has no need for these pretty gowns. Pansy never goes anywhere where she can be seen,' she would pout.  
  
He watched her face light up. Another time he might have been pleased with himself. Now he couldn't care one way or another if Pansy was happy or not. All his spare thoughts were of Virginia and the brief time they had spent together. If the truth were known or if he cared to admit it to himself, he was tiring of Pansy and her childish, clinging ways. For a woman of twenty she was often infant-like in her behaviour.  
  
She came to him and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him gratefully. 'You make Pansy so happy!'  
  
'Be ready when I get back,' he said curtly.  
  
After Draco and Pansy's dinner.  
  
He felt like an idiot. Another gulp of liquor made him feel better. Virginia Weasley and Hermione Granger were not going to torment him any longer. Did she have any idea what a sacrifice it was for him to give up Pansy? Did she have any idea of what it cost him to send the China doll packing? A goddamn fortune, that's how much. By God, he should demand his money back from her lawyer. The thought amused him, and he threw back his head and roared with laughter. He should just show her the list Pansy had presented to him. The Weasel would sing a different tune when she saw how much he had paid out. Perfume, makeup, clothes for the day, clothes for the night, shoes, toiletries. Shoes, lots of shoes the list had read. Jewels, jewels. A cape for the opera, a cape for flying, a cape for walking. By God, he had paid through the nose. And don't forget the goddamn spinet she demanded. The brandy bottle flew to his lips and he gurgled deeply. Well he wasn't going to let her get away with it. Where was darling, beautiful Pansy now, he wondered pitifully. Probably in some gaol starving to death, all because of Virginia Weasley. 'My ass she's starving,' he thundered drunkenly when he suddenly remembered the cash deposit the tiny girl had demanded. And he had just handed it over, glad to be rid of the tiny creature who had shared his townhouse for two years. He had suffered greatly when Pansy had pocketed the money and said in her best little girl voice, 'It is my pension, Luke.' It was goddamn outright thievery, was what it was!  
  
He was drunk. If anyone had a right to get falling down drunk, it was he. He laughed again, a deep, booming sound that brought his butler on the run. His dark eyes took in the scene, and he smirked. The boss was drunk. Jessup couldn't wait to tell the others. Something good must have happened. It had been years since he had seen the boss so pie-eyes. It was good to see.  
  
'Jessup, come in here. Fetch me another bottle of brandy and lets have a drink. I want to make a toast, and I want you to join me.' Jessup grinned as he uncorked the bottle. 'No, no, a bottle for you and one for me. We won't bother with glasses, takes too long to drink that way.'  
  
'What are we drinking to?'  
  
'To the biggest damn fool in all of England. Me!' he said triumphantly as he swallowed a hearty gulp of the fiery brandy. 'You must have made this rotgut yourself, Jessup. It would take the hide off a water buffalo at fifty paces. Just the stink! The real stuff would kill him.'  
  
Jessup choked on the brandy and it dribbled down his chin. He wiped at the brandy with his shirtsleeve. If he was going to get drunk with the boss, he'd better do it neatly.  
  
'And to. and to.' Jessup waited patiently.  
  
'What was I saying?' Draco demanded. Jessup shrugged. 'I remember, we want to toast womanhood. Those goddamn creatures who make our blood boil. Don't ever look at a woman Jessup. They can kill you with their eyes. Do you want to hear a story? It's a sad story but I'm going to tell you anyway. Pay attention, because I don't want the same thing to happen to you.'  
  
In between sips of brandy, Draco unburdened himself. 'I tell you there is no justice. Tell me the truth, Jessup. Do you think I'm a good man?'  
  
Jessup leered drunkenly. 'A very good man.'  
  
'Well, as one man to another, do you think the Weasel should pay me back for what Pansy cost me? I did it for her. Now she's going somewhere where they have to wear lots and lots of clothes.'  
  
'For you, it is a big problem,' Jessup said knowingly.  
  
'It begins soon.'  
  
'You have a big problem.'  
  
Draco drunkenly agreed.  
  
Draco nodded his head. Christ, that was his head bobbing on his shoulders, wasn't it. Jessup looked strange; he couldn't have three ears. 'I know what I'm going to do, Jessup,' he said slurring his words. 'I'm going to get rid of my father. Isn't that fair, Jessup?'  
  
'More then fair.' Jessup said toppling from the chair.  
  
'Then everyone can pray from my soul. Mother loved to pray for my soul. So did Dumbledore, he prays for all the souls,' Draco said virtuously. 'Jessup, get up, we have to go to bed.' Loud snores ricocheted around Draco as he peered down at his butler. 'If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a man who can't hold his liquor,' Draco said in disgust.  
  
Next Chapter  
  
'Striking woman that Mistress Shickovavich.' The Minister of Dark Animals came to stand beside his father in law. He began to sneeze copiously into his handkerchief. 'I hope she isn't discriminated for her appearance. Takes some nerve to appear in public like that.'  
  
'Ja'dores is not going to kill her.' His son in law didn't smile as he offered this curt comment. The Minister had correctly guessed that Lucius Malfoy was staring at the lady who'd just entered the ballroom at Ja'dores on the arm of her husband.  
  
The three elegant salons at the assembly rooms were thronged with those fortunate members of the people of England to be approved by the fourteen member committee of those behind Ja'dores whose draconian rules ensured that three quarters of England's rich, famous and powerful knocked in vain for admission. Among that made up and elaborately coiffured crowd at this subscription at this party, Mistress Shickovavich's appearance was remarkable.  
  
She wore her hair simply, her complexion innocent of makeup.  
  
Ginny paused instinctively in the entrance to the ballroom, and Draco taking his cue from her, paused too. A whisper rushed through the room; then every eye turned toward the double doors. 


	11. Chapter ten

Chapter Nine  
  
Void In My Mind Mist; it darkens Lake; it swirls. Everything spins Round in my head, Blinding my vision; Crushing my sense. I don't know Who you are And the case is always Misleading I don't know Who I am And the case is always Betrayal. I can't tell Why I'm here And the case is always Sanity I close my eyes I grip myself And then I let go Of my true judgment. This sinister darkness Consumes me tightly; And I feel the sun Deceiving me. And I feel the fire Destroying me. And I feel the gust Explode on me. Icy smile; Just forget it. I don't know Who to trust. This obscurity Is absorbing me Like a Winter chill. Summer blaze. Like a Tower; a tower About to collapse. Like a Whirlwind Deep inside me. It's like a Void in my mind.  
  
© Copyright 2003 Akanksha Mathur Chibi Dude (FictionPress.Net ID:179287). All rights reserved. Distribution of any kind is prohibited without the written consent of Akanksha Mathur Chibi Dude.  
  
'Striking woman that Mistress Shickovavich.' The Minister of Dark Animals came to stand beside his father in law. He began to sneeze copiously into his handkerchief. 'I hope she isn't discriminated for her appearance. Takes some nerve to appear in public like that.'  
  
'Ja'dores is not going to kill her.' His son in law didn't smile as he offered this curt comment. The Minister had correctly guessed that Lucius Malfoy was staring at the lady who'd just entered the ballroom at Ja'dores on the arm of her husband.  
  
The three elegant salons at the assembly rooms were thronged with those fortunate members of the people of England to be approved by the fourteen member committee of those behind Ja'dores whose draconian rules ensured that three quarters of England's rich, famous and powerful knocked in vain for admission. Among that made up and elaborately coiffured crowd at this subscription at this party, Mistress Shickovavich's appearance was remarkable.  
  
She wore her hair simply, her complexion innocent of makeup.  
  
Ginny paused instinctively in the entrance to the ballroom, and Draco taking his cue from her, paused too. A whisper rushed through the room; then every eye turned toward the double doors.  
  
Ginny's insistence on making her first serious public appearance in this unusual fashion had amused Draco. He'd gone along with it because he couldn't see that it would do any harm, but when he'd watched her descend the staircase at Dover Street that night, he understood exactly what she was about. The men would flock like vultures. The women would hate her, of course. Such a perfect complexion, such wonderfully unusual colouring, displayed without artifice. Virginia had no need of beauty patches to draw attention away from scars, or rouge to brighten a complexion dulled by lack of sleep, overindulgence, the clogged grease of makeup and thick-caked powder.  
  
Her hair piled high off her forehead and falling in soft curls to her shoulders, glowed in the candlelight in all its natural glory, setting off the pale translucence of her cheeks and the deep-set tawny gold of her eyes. Her formal gown was a dainty confection of white muslin opened over another coat of apple-green silk, the white sleeves of the gown falling over her wrists. An oval, dragon broach tucked into the low neckline drew attention to the swell of her bosom while seeming discreetly to conceal it.  
  
All in all, it was a masterly costume designed to complement the Madonna- like innocence of her face, the delicate curves of her body, yet at the same time, with its bold rejection of convention, to hint at a certain recklessness of character, a touch of defiance and mystery.  
  
She would have the men at her feet in minutes, or such had been his initial assessment. Ann underestimation, he now realized, as the Vice Minister of Magic moved his substantial bulk across the ballroom, his face red and sweaty, a lascivious gleam in his eyes and an eager smile on his lips.  
  
'Madam.' He bowed low. 'What a vision. a refreshingly unusual vision, indeed. Pray introduce me to your wife, Vladimir.'  
  
Blandly, Draco performed the introduction, and the Minister seized Ginny's hand. 'Where have you come from, my dear lady? To think of all the months we've been languishing here without a sight of you. How could you have kept yourself so far from our eyes?. Indeed, how could you have permitted this sly dog to steal you before anyone else had a chance?' He wagged a plump finger at Draco and laughed heartily.  
  
'You are too kind, sir.' Ginny curtsied, her eyes darting around the circle of men gathering behind the Vice Minister.  
  
'Oh, no no no. Oh, no, I believe not,' declared the Minister. 'Not too kind. not possible. Such a ravishing creature, Vladimir. You're a dog. to steal a march on us like this. Where did you find her?'  
  
For all the world as if she were a rare specimen of insect life discovered under some remote stone, Ginny thought.  
  
'In the country, sir,' Draco responded as blandly as before. 'In Northumberland, where I was recently visiting.'  
  
'Northumberland!' the Minister turned his little eyes upon Virginia in some astonishment. 'Gad, I'd never have believed it possible. Very far north it is, isn't that so?' He glanced behind him for corroboration.  
  
'Yes, sir,' agreed someone. 'I believe it's quite a distance from London.'  
  
'Gad,' repeated the Minister, examining Ginny through his squinting eyes. 'If they keep such beauties as this up there, I must pay a visit, meself. what?' He laughed heartily at this sally and extended his hand. 'Come dance with me, you ravishing creature.'  
  
'But I've not yet been given permission by one of the committee,' Virginia demurred, fluttering her fan. 'I shouldn't wish to break the rules, Minister.'  
  
The man roared with laughter. 'As if you haven't already done so, ma'am. Dolly. Dolly, come over here and give this exquisite creature permission to dance with me.' He beckoned vigorously to a lady in dress robes of lilac tabby, her massive hair decorated with a score of tiny furry animals peeping from between what looked to Ginny to be tufts of grass.  
  
The woman named Dolly advanced, a stiff smile for the Vice Minister on her lips. She stared rudely at Ginny and curtsied infinitesimally. 'Mistress Athena Shickovavich.'  
  
Virginia swept an elegant and deferential curtsy in response. 'Ma'am.'  
  
'If you wish the name of a competent hairdresser, Mistress Shickovavich, I should be happy to furnish you with one.'  
  
Ginny curtsied again. 'You're too kind, ma'am.'  
  
'I am aware that people do things differently in the country,' the lady stated, her nose twitching, her mouth pursing. 'But we don't bring country ways into London, madam. They don't suit.'  
  
'Oh, I believe there's always room for improvement, ma'am,' Ginny said sweetly. 'Even London should be open to modern ideas.'  
  
The woman stared at her in disbelief, clearly wondering if she'd heard aright. Had this newcomer actually had the temerity to describe London fashions outdated?  
  
Draco raised an eyebrow. Perhaps Virginia didn't understand the weight of this woman's influence. He was searching for something to smooth over the jagged silence when the Vice Minister burst into a hearty peal of laughter.  
  
'Quite right, Mistress Athena. We're shockingly stuck in our ways here. Too much convention and protocol and the Lord knows what else. It's all the fault of the Ministry y'know. Devilish strict and old fashioned it is. Just wait until it's my turn. then we'll see some changes, you mark my words.'  
  
This shockingly unfilially statement that could only be interpreted as a desire to hasten the Minister's demise was received in a silence so deeply disgusted that Ginny's minor challenge sank without trace.  
  
The Vice Minister seized her hand and whirled her away onto the floor, where a set was forming for a country-dance.  
  
'The Vice Minister is still young. and somewhat headstrong,' Draco observed quietly, bowing to the older woman, offering a smile that invited her participation in this mature reflection. 'Youth tends to be.'  
  
'Yes, of course,' the woman agreed, dabbing her upper lip with a scented handkerchief. She examined the figure of Minister Shickovavich and seemed somewhat mollified by what she saw. The Minister was dressed in black silk, his hair without gel and tied loosely at the nape. He wore a gold fob and a diamond pin sparked blue fire against the blinding white of his shirtfront. His expression was attentive, his smile pleasantly complicit, as if his last statement were offered as much as excuse fore his young wife as for the Vice Minister of Magic.  
  
'Youth must be guided by their elders, Minister Shickovavich,' she said after a minute, her eyes venturing pointed towards the dance floor and the unconventional Mistress Shickovavich. 'Your wife appears to lack town bronze, sir.'  
  
'Oh, I don't believe that's the case.' Minister Malfoy spoke suddenly from the attentive circle around them. 'I suspect Mistress Shickovavich merely dares to be out of the ordinary. What do you say, Shickovavich?'  
  
Draco bowed in his father's direction, his eyebrows lifting, a glint of humour in his eyes. 'An accurate assessment, I believe, Malfoy.'  
  
Lucius's full mouth twitched into a thin smile. His gaze returned to the puffing ballroom antics of the Vice Minister with an expression of frigid disgust, but as his eyes moved to the Minister's partner, a spark of interest flickered below the cold grey surface.  
  
How could Lucius sense nothing? Draco wondered. Every time they exchanged looks or words, his own body temperature seemed to rise, his blood to quicken in his veins as recognition and recollection hammered at the gates of his soul. Yet Lucius showed not the slightest sign of unease or puzzlement in his son's presence. Perhaps because he knew his son to be dead, there was no room for even an inkling of some disturbing twitch of recognition.  
  
'You met Mistress Shickovavich in Northumberland?' Lucius asked casually, turning away from the dance floor.  
  
Draco smiled politely, 'yes, while I was visiting old family friends.'  
  
'This is her first visit to London, of course.'  
  
Draco nodded. 'We thought to postpone our honeymoon until after the birthday.'  
  
The Queen's birthday was in June and marked the end of the Ministry season. Lucius nodded again, his gaze returning to the dance floor. 'But a honeymoon in London at the height of the season has its charms for the uninitiated, I would imagine.' Lucius bowed and strolled away, making his way around the outskirts of the room where the chaperons sat in groups, sipping drinks and gossiping.  
  
The Lady Narcissa Malfoy, sitting bodkin between two starched matrons, looked up as he approached her, a nervous smile on her lips. She patted her coiffure, straightened the lace at her neck, her eyes filled with anxious appeal as she awaited some humiliating public criticism of her appearance. But her husband merely looked through her as if she were a flubberworm and passed on, leaving her as mortified by his lack of acknowledgment as if he'd heaped scorn upon her.  
  
The name of Mistress Shickovavich was on every tongue. And it stayed there throughout the evening. The Vice Minister of Magic refused to relinquish the lady, and Draco watched from afar as she became the centre of the Vice Minister's own sycophanatic circle of young reprobates.  
  
Ginny knew as well as did Draco that for as long as she was favoured by the Vice Minister, society might criticize, but it would never ostracize. For the plan to work, she must be identified with a circle that drank deep, played the tables to ruination, and threw conventional ethics to the four winds. The Vice Minister of Magic's intimates formed such a circle, and by the end of the evening she'd deflected a dozen oblique suggestions and turned down four outright proposals, one of which came from the Vice Minister himself.  
  
'La, sir, but I'm a married woman,' she protested as the Minister held her hand tightly between both of his hot palms and beamed at her.  
  
The Minister guffawed but looked genuinely taken aback by this cavil. 'I'd hardly suggest it, my dear ma'am, if you were not. A man can't enjoy himself with an unmarried gal. Now, don't tell me Minister Shickovavich is such a spoilsport as to be a jealous husband.'  
  
'Why, sir, I don't believe he'd been a husband long enough as yet to know whether he is or not,' she returned demurely. 'I think it's a little soon to be contemplating a leap from the marriage bed. We've only been wed two weeks.'  
  
The Minister chucked and patted her cheek. 'A forthright woman, that's what I like. No missish nonsense about you. Well, well, my dear, we shall see how long it takes for your husband to start wandering. And when he does, I dare swear you'll look upon the matter with new eyes.  
  
'Perhaps so, sir.'  
  
Where exactly was Draco? It was two o'clock in the morning, and Virginia glanced around the supper room, where the company had for the most part adjourned to nibble oyster patties and bread and jam and sip champagne.  
  
She caught sight of Draco in a window embrasure, deep in conversation with a highly made up woman in a gown of deep crimson taffeta, a diamond collar glittering at her throat. Two heart shaped beauty patches adorned the upper swell of her breasts, and when she moved an arm sideways to take a piece of bread and jam from the table, her right nipple popped out of her décolletage. She mad no attempt to replace it, and as Ginny watched, Draco delicately reinserted the nipple into her gown with a long, slender forefinger.  
  
The lady laughed and tapped his cheek with her closed fan. Draco's lazy half smile played over his lips as he leaned back against the wall, turning the stem of his champagne glass between finger and thumb.  
  
'There, you see!' pronounced the Vice Mister Constantinople, whose gaze had followed Virginia's. 'Not a man to wast a minute is he? Shickovavich's known as a philandered, dear lady. Can't expeact a marriage vow to change a man's character.'  
  
Ginny offered a smile and a shrug of indifference.  
  
Constantinople chuckled, wrapping an arm around her bare shoulders. His fingers playing with the broach at her neck. 'Such a modest little thing,' he murmured. 'No chance of your revealing a little too much of anything, Lady Shickovavich. Not like Mistress Les Sables. eh?'  
  
'Mistress Les Sables has the advantage of me, sir.'  
  
'Oh? Hows that?' The man's little eyes focused blearily. 'A little more flesh there, is that it?' He patted Ginny's bosom with a grin.  
  
'No, sir. She has the advantage of years,' Ginny said smoothly, taking a step backward from the Minister's fingers.  
  
'Oh, wicked! Such a little cat with her claws,' the Minister boomed, highly delighted with this sally. 'But I tell you, madam.' He wagged a finger at her. 'Blaise Les Sables would have your eyes out for that.'  
  
'Indeed, sir. I tremble.' Virginia was at a loss to understand why there was an edge to her voice. Blaise Les Sables, was Draco's old friend. she was nothing to her. Draco was simply playing his part, as she was playing hers. However, he'd certainly looked as if he was enjoying himself, dabbling in the lady's bosom. But then, why shouldn't he? It was no business of Virginia's. So why this dismaying curl of indignation in her belly?  
  
As she watched, Draco bent his head, his mouth close to the lady's ear. Mistress Les Sables's laugh shrilled abruptly over the hubbub in the supper room.  
  
'They seem to be amusing themselves.' The dry voice spoke her thoughts. Lucius Malfoy stood at her shoulder, his gaze fixed on the play across the room. A smile was on his lips, but it was a smile that sent a shiver down Virginia's spine.  
  
She looked up meeting his eye, and was startled by the strangest sense of discordance, as if the rather beautiful face was not what it seemed. As if behind the smooth, broad expanse of his forehead, the clear grey eyes, the almost delicate features, lurked something venomous.  
  
'Yes,' she said coolly, unfurling her fan. 'They do. As does everyone else in the room. I do declare, sir, that this has been the most entertaining evening I've passed since we arrived in London.'  
  
'Oh, the best value in town, ma'am,' the Vice Minister declared. 'A ten- galleon subscription for the jolly weekly ball throughout the season. and such an elegant supper!' The group around him laughed dutifully at the heavy handed sarcasm, and Ginny smiled.  
  
'I am new here, sir. My tastes are still unformed.'  
  
'Oh, but not for long, I'll wager,' one young Minister said with a leer. 'I trust we may call upon you, Mistress Shickovavich. Dover Street, isn't it?'  
  
'I should be honoured.' Virginia curtsied to the Vice Minister of Magic. 'I beg you to excuse me, sir. It grows late, and I should return to my husband's side.'  
  
'Allow me to escort you.' Lucius Malfoy offered his arm with a bow.  
  
'Thank you, Minister.' She placed her hand on his sleeve, and they moved away from the still-chattering circle around the Vice Minister.  
  
'You seem to have made a conquest of His Royal Highness, the Vice Minister. You're to be congratulated, ma'am.'  
  
'Is it matter for congratulation, sir?' Ginny looked up at him with a bland smile. 'I would have thought it the opposite. He does not appear to be particularly discriminating in his tastes.'  
  
Surprise flashed across the slate-grey eyes bent upon her countenance, and the bud of interest they held burst into full flower. He smiled, and this time it was a warm and appreciative smile that seemed to bathe her in approval. Virginia felt herself smiling in response, and it took a moment of effort to remind herself that this man was Draco's father.  
  
'It's good to see you're not blinded by consequence, ma'am,' the man said. 'The Vice Minister is a fool, but he can be useful if he is played right.'  
  
'I had rather assumed that, sir.'  
  
Lucius's chuckle was abruptly cut off as they approached the embrasure, where Draco and Blaise Les Sables still stood, deep in conversation, their heads very close together.  
  
'La, sir, but you have a wicked tongue,' trilled Mistress Les Sables, tapping his wrist smartly with her fan. She turned to greet the new arrivals, her eyes very bright, and her colour higher than could be accounted for simply by rouge. 'Why Minister Malfoy, I didn't realize you were here this evening. Minister Shickovavich has been so monstrously entertaining, I've scarce had a moment to look around.'  
  
Lucius bowed. 'Then I'm certain there must be a great wailing and gnashing of teeth among your admirers, madam.' His tone managed to imply that he was not of their number, and Lady Les Sable's china-blue eyes flashed.  
  
'I don't believe you're acquainted with my wife, ma'am.' Draco stepped into the breach with a lazy smile. 'Athena, pray allow me to make you known to Lady Les Sables.'  
  
'An old acquaintance of yours, sir?' Virginia inquired with a sweet smile as she curtsied to Blaise.  
  
'Oh, no, a very recent one,' Draco corrected.  
  
'I was sure you must have known each other since you were babes in arms,' Virginia returned. 'I was hoping Lady Les Sables out of friendship for you, would show me how to go on in Ministry society. She must have had so much more experience than I.'  
  
Draco swallowed an appreciative grin as Blaise looked daggers at the smooth- complexioned woman smiling at her with such deceptive innocence.  
  
'Your husband, my dear Lady Shickovavich, has had quite sufficient experience to perform that service for you,' Blaise said. 'Indeed, it surprises me he hasn't explained Ministry society fashion for you. To allow one's wife to appear in such undress is. well, is quite cruel.' She tittered and batted her eyelashes at Draco.  
  
'Oh hardly cruel, ma'am,' he murmured. 'But I do believe one should learn through one's errors. What do you think Malfoy?'  
  
The question was startlingly sharp, belied by his air of languid amusement. Virginia waited for the earl's response, struggling with her resentment. For some reason she'd expected Draco to defend her against that attack, instead of which he seemed to be agreeing with Blaise Les Sable's mocking assessment.  
  
'Oh, I believe Mistress Shickovavich knows exactly what suits her,' Lucius said. 'A woman who knows her own mind is always so refreshing. One is surrounded by so many sheep in Ministry society.' He smiled at Mistress Les Sables, but his eyes were grey ice, and he hesitated a moment too long before adding, 'Present company excepted, of course.'  
  
'Of course,' Draco said, turning to Virginia. 'If you're ready to leave this scene of dissipation, my dear, I'm at your service.'  
  
'I'm quite ready.' Virginia offered Minister Malfoy a curtsy. 'You're very gallant, sir.'  
  
'I speak only the truth, madam.' He bowed and took her hand, raising it to his lips. 'I trust I may call upon you.'  
  
'I should be honoured. Mistress Les Sables.' Another curtsy and she placed her hand on Draco's proffered arm.  
  
They moved sedately through the rooms, down the stairs to the hall. Draco sent one servant scurrying for their cloaks and a second to call their limousine. They stood silently in the hall under the brilliant light of the three chandeliers. The silence seemed awkward. Virginia tried to think of something to break it, but she felt strangely out of sorts, annoyed and resentful, through she could think of no good reason for it. Draco appeared as relaxed as ever, one foot tapping on the granite floor in time to the strains of music drifting down from the ballroom, his gaze roaming lazily around the crowd for departing revellers.  
  
'Oh, my dear, Mistress Shickovavich, leaving us so soon.' The Vice Minister of Magic tottered and swayed down the staircase. He grabbed hold of the banister as he reached the bottom step. 'Come and play cards, ma'am. I can promise a good game at Mistress Mount Edgecombe's tonight.' He offered a skewed wink at Draco's direction. 'Your husband, I'll wager, isn't averse to a game of power. Eh, Shickovavich?'  
  
'On any other evening, sir, I'd be overjoyed,' Draco responded. 'But my wife is fatigued.'  
  
'Oh, yes. yes, of course.' The prince nodded sagely, tapping the side of his nose. 'And you're but new to the marriage bed. What. what?' he added in imitation of the Minister of Magic, laughing uproariously, his friends joining him.  
  
'I trust we can persuade you to play at Dover Street on some evening,' Draco suggested once the paroxysms had faded somewhat.  
  
'Oh. oh, what's this, then? Settin' up a faro house of your own, are you?' The Minister's eyes sharpened as far as they were able to. 'Is Lady Shickovavich going to join out Sphinx's poison, then?'  
  
'I can promise an amusing evening, sir,' Virginia said smoothly picking up her cue. 'I'll not presume to rival the salons of Mistress Buckinghamshire or Mistress Archer or Mistress Mount Edgecombe, but I believe you might find some entertainment at our house.'  
  
'Oh, wonderful. wonderful,' the Vice Minister declared, clapping his hands. 'D'ye hear that, fellows? Mistress Shickovavich is to join the ranks of Sphinx's poison.' Leaning over, he kissed her heartily on the cheek. 'Send an owl, dear lady, when the tables are set up.'  
  
'Minister Vladimir Shickovavich's limousine!' a voice bellowed from the door. The servant ran up with their cloaks, and in the flurry the Vice Minister and his cohorts moved noisily away. Draco draped Virginia's cloak around her shoulders, took his own from the servant, and escorted her outside.  
  
King Street was lined with cars, link bulbs running up and down the street to illuminate the street. Two women appeared from the alley leading to the Minister of Magic's Place, their gowns and hair artfully disarrayed. They lounged against a wall, watching the scene.  
  
The Vice Minister of Magic bumbled through the doorway behind Virginia and Draco. With a whoop he charged across King Street to the two women. 'I've a mind to visit to the nunnery after all that respectable insipidity,' he bellowed at the top of his voice. 'Take me to your abbess, my dear delights.' He swayed off down the alley, arm in arm with the two prostitutes, his cohorts following eagerly in his wake.  
  
'What a poxy horrible creature,' Ginny declared with feeling.  
  
'He probably will be carrying a disease if he goes with those whores,' Draco observed. 'There are clean houses in the Minister's Place and Convent Garden, but for some inexplicable reason our esteemed heir to Ministry of Magic prefers to dabble in the sewers.' He moved aside to hand Virginia into the car.  
  
As she put one foot inside the car, a thin lady enveloped in a puce velvet cloak emerged from the assembly rooms. She caught her foot in a loose paving stone and pitched forward with a cry of dismay. Draco dropped Virginia's hand and ran to help the woman to her feet.  
  
'Are you hurt, ma'am?' He picked up her fallen reticule and handed it to her.  
  
'No. no, I thank you, sir. So stupid. so clumsy of me.'  
  
'But you are ever thus, my dear,' came a cold voice behind her. Lucius Malfoy surveyed his wife with an air of utter contempt. 'Stupid and clumsy as a flubberworm. Aren't you, madam?'  
  
Narcissa Malfoy looked down at the pavement and wished it would open up to swallow her. There were people everywhere, eyes and ears open to catch her husband's icy contempt.  
  
'Aren't you, madam?' he repeated with a deadly ferocity.  
  
'Yes, Lucius,' she said softly. 'Yes, I do beg your pardon.' Tears filled her eyes and she kept her gaze lowered staring wretchedly at the ground.  
  
'Do you intend to stand here all night?' her husband inquired. 'Allow me to point out that the car awaits your pleasure, my dear.' He gestured to wards the limousine with the Malfoy insignia above its number plate, and the two burly servants who were staring rigidly ahead down the busy street.  
  
'I beg your pardon,' Narcissa apologized again, stepping towards the car. She clambered awkwardly over the poles to enter through the front, the wide swinging of skirts of her gown making her inherent clumsiness even more announced.  
  
Draco stood in the shadows, watching, waiting for his father to offer a hand to assist his wife, but Lucius remained where he was, his lip curled in disdain, until the door was closed on Narcissa. The two servants sat inside the car, and headed down King Street, threading their way through the traffic.  
  
Lucius spun on his heel and walked away in the opposite direction. As he passed Draco, he walked beneath a magically lit lantern floating above him, and the golden light illuminated his face. Draco saw the Lucius that only he had known in his childhood. The face that was no longer a beautiful mask but the true reflection of the twisted soul beneath. His eyes were narrowed, his mouth thinned with malice, his entire expression radiating the triumph and satisfaction of the sadist who had just inflicted pain.  
  
Draco turned back to the car, where Virginia still stood poised, one foot on the step. She hadn't heard the exchange between Lucius and his wife but had sensed its vicious nature. Now Draco's face sent an icy dart through her belly. He looked haunted, pain etched in every line of his countenance, but it wasn't that that turned her blood to water- it was the fearsome anger that superseded the ghostly pain.  
  
'What was your childhood like?' she asked softly, involuntarily.  
  
Draco's eyes focused abruptly. 'You don't need to know that.' He took her hand and with his other palm in the small of her urged her upward into the car.  
  
'There is an evil in him,' Virginia declared with a fierce intensity, arranging her skirts on the leather squabs. 'I sense it, and I know that you know it. And yet you would have me seduce this man without telling me your future plans. Is that fair Draco?'  
  
Draco sat opposite her. He regarded her in the darkness of the car, frowning. 'Fairness never was a Malfoy trait,' he said eventually. 'Yes, Lucius Malfoy is evil. But I wont permit any harm to come to you at his hands. If you fulfil your side of this bargain, you have no need to know what I know, and you need have no fear of him. He hurts only those in his power. And you will not be.'  
  
'How can you say that?' Virginia expostulated. 'How can I not be in his power when I am in his bed? What power dos a woman have in those circumstances?'  
  
'Oh, you'd be surprised how much,' Draco said, his voice now light.  
  
'I don't find it a subject for jest,' Virginia said tightly. 'You know perfectly well what I mean. how vulnerable I will be in such a situation. This is preys on the vulnerable, you've just said so.'  
  
'My dear, you will not be vulnerable in the only way that appeals to Lucius,' Draco said, leaning back, folding his arms. 'He's interested in hurting souls, not bodies. And your soul will not be in his power. Besides, it may not be necessary for you to make the' - he paused as if considering his words, and then said wryly- 'the ultimate sacrifice.'  
  
How could he make a joke of it? How could he be so derisively dismissive about something that touched her so nearly? Was it really a matter of indifference to him whether she prostituted herself to Lucius Malfoy or not? But he probably didn't see it in those terms. No one in this depraved society would think twice about it. They all played these sordid little games.  
  
Draco had closed his eyes as if to indicate that the subject had ceased to be of interest. The car had slowed at the crossroads, and a light shone through the window. Lamplight and shadow played over the planed of his closed face, throwing the harshness of his mouth, the clenched set of his jaw, into sharp relief.  
  
His expression was utterly uncompromising, and Virginia was learning when it was pointless to push this man whose bed she shared, whose body she was growing to know almost as well as she knew her own. He could switch in the beat of a bird's wing from an amused and amusing companion to a chilly, distant, and dictatorial stranger. And she had not as yet learned how to resist those dictates. Anymore than she'd learned to resist the magnetism of his personality, the way he could sweep her along his chosen path, making light of her objections when he didn't ignore them totally. Any more than she could imagine turning away from him when he reached for her with the hands of lust and eyes of passion.  
  
'We made a good start this evening, I believe,' she said in level tones, drawing her cloak around her shoulders against the night frost.  
  
Draco's eyes opened and rested on her countenance. She saw softness now in the grey depths and a glimmer of amusement. He began to count on his fingers as he spoke. 'Yes, you've managed to arouse Lucius's interest and the Vice Minister's unbridled lust; to establish yourself as a lady who enjoys pushing the bounds of convention; and to issue a general invitation for high stakes gaming in your salons.'  
  
He smiled lazily. 'Against the law, of course. Justice Kenyon threatened Mistress Buckinghamshire with the cart's arse if she came up before him for running a gaming house.'  
  
'He couldn't have meant it?' Virginia's eyes widened as she imagined the obese figure of Mistress Buckinghamshire whipped at the cart's tail.  
  
'No, I don't think even Kenyon would dare to punish a member of the blue- blooded aristocracy in such a fashion,' Draco agreed with a chuckle. 'But the threat caused some alarm.' He linked his hands in his lap, and the emerald on a slender forefinger glowed dully in the darkness.  
  
'And while I was being so busy, what did you achieve this evening?' Virginia asked with a touch of acid, reminded of how that particular finger had tidied up Mistress Les Sable's escaping nipple. 'Did you contrive to meet your prey?'  
  
'I don't believe they were there,' he said, making a steeple of his fingers. 'I didn't see them, at all events.'  
  
'I see. And Mistress Les Sables? Was she useful to you in any way?'  
  
Draco looked sharply at her. 'Why the acid tipped tongue, Virginia?'  
  
Virginia turned her heads on the seat top behind her and gazed out at the darkness. 'I just wondered why, while I was enduring the odious attentions of the Vice Minister, you were amusing yourself. I thought this was a joint enterprise.'  
  
'I was making it easy for you, my dear Virginia.' He sounded amused, and she wanted to throw something at him. 'Blaise Les Sables is Lucius Malfoy's whore. I thought to prod him a little in your direction. to give him a reason to get back at me.'  
  
'I doubt he required a prod,' Virginia retorted. 'He seemed quite interested enough in me before you started dabbling in Mistress Les Sables's bosom.'  
  
Draco laughed. 'Such games are played, sweet innocent. A little dalliance means nothing. particularly with a known whore like Blaise Les Sables.'  
  
'You don't care for her?'  
  
'Oh, she can be quite amusing, particularly when she's annoyed. But she's a trifle overblown for me. I prefer my women a little fresher.'  
  
'Oh, you do, do you?' Virginia glared at the pale glimmer of his face across form her. 'Like meat in the butcher's shop- best if we haven't been hanging to long.'  
  
Draco's jaw dropped. 'Now, just a minute, Virginia. Why are you so set on pulling caps with me? We've had a very successful evening. My quarry are not going anywhere- indeed, they'll be beating a path to Dover Street once the news of a high-stakes gaming table is spread around. And we can leave the spreading to the Ministry's mouth,' he added dryly.  
  
When she made no response, merely continued to stare out of the window, he leaned over and took her gloved hands in his. 'What's troubling you, sweet?' His voice was as dark and smooth as caramel, and she could never resist the endearment that belonged in glowing candlelight and soft silk sheets and accompanied leisurely caresses and the languor of fulfilment.  
  
She couldn't admit the truth. Jealousy was a demeaning and petty emotion.  
  
'I expect I'm fatigued,' she said with a little laugh that didn't sound particularly convincing to her ears. 'Over excitement, probably. Rubbing shoulders with Ministry royalty. sharpening swords with the likes of Mistress of Deerwater.'  
  
Draco was not convinced, but he didn't challenge her explanation. 'Do you have the courage to continue ignoring the dictates of fashion?' he asked neutrally. Releasing her hands and leaning back again.  
  
'I don't believe it requires courage,' Virginia said, accepting the change of subject with relief. 'It might if I looked like a freak, but since I know I don't then.' she shrugged.  
  
Draco relaxed. Her confidence pleased him. It was certainly not misplaced. She'd been the cynosure of every eye all evening. Not every eye had been admiring, of course, but one couldn't expect to stand out in a crowd without drawing resentment.  
  
All in all, it had been a most satisfactory debut. It was only to be expected that Virginia would have a few flutters of apprehension and uncertainty, particularly in the aftermath of the evening. Such vulnerabilities would undoubtedly disappear as she became more accustomed to the part, and as the play took shape.  
  
A/N- Please r/r. I finally found out how to make it so that all can review. if you want to get the chapters more quickly, you can subscribe to my yahoo group, there are also picture which anaxandra has volunteered to draw at 


	12. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Ten  
  
The car drew up outside a tall, narrow house on Dover Street. An oil lamp hung outside the front door, and lights glowed in the downstairs windows.  
  
'I wonder if Papa is still awake.'  
  
'If he is, perhaps we should pay him a good-night visit.' Draco opened the car door and sprang down. 'I don't know why it is, but I have the unshakeable conviction that your father regards our marriage with a somewhat sceptical eye.' He reached up his hand to help her alight. 'Am I right?'  
  
'Possible,' Virginia said, stepping down beside him. 'One can never be sure what my father sees. In some things he's very shrewd.'  
  
The door opened as they walked up to it. 'Good evening Griffin. Has Mr. Weasley retired?'  
  
'I don't believe so, my lady.' The butler bowed her in. 'He rang for a fresh pot of coffee a short while ago.'  
  
'Then we'll go up and bid him goodnight,' Draco said, shrugging out of his cloak. 'Lock up, Griffin.' He strode to the stairs on Virginia's heels.  
  
'You might wish to send Nell to bed,' he murmured against Virginia's ear as they passed by her bedchamber. 'There's nothing she can do for you tonight that I can't do as well.'  
  
Virginia looked over her shoulder at him, meeting the heat of a gaze that turned her limbs to honey. 'Better, I would have said, Malfoy.'  
  
She turned aside to open her bedroom door. 'You may go to bed, Nell.'  
  
The maid dozing in a chair beside the fire jumped sleepily to her feet. 'Oh, ma'am, I'm quite awake,' she protested with a guilty flush.  
  
'Yes, I can see that. Nevertheless, I have no further need of you tonight.' Virginia smiled at the girl, knowing how terrified she was that she would lose her position at the slightest dereliction. 'Go to bed, Nell. And I'll see you in the morning.'  
  
'Yes, mistress.' The girl curtsied. 'I'll set the fire up, though, shall I?'  
  
'If you please.' Virginia stepped back into the corridor, closing the door quietly behind her. Sometimes she felt as if they were living within a stage set, the limits of their play set in a fixed time and place. Every member of their household was a member of the cast, although only she and Draco knew it. And when the curtain came down, the supporting cast would be out of a job.  
  
But not necessarily, she told herself briskly. If all went well, she and her father would be in a position to staff a household again. They weren't really playing with people's lives, just because they hadn't shared with the household the temporary nature of this employment. Besides, for as long as the play continued, these people were assured of food, warmth and a bed, and thus a great deal better off than the majority of London's population.  
  
It occurred to Virginia that this uncomfortable social conscience that she'd developed had grown out of her own intimate acquaintance with poverty's grim and desperate face. Draco knew that face too, but he seemed less troubled by it. Or perhaps he kept such reactions to himself. as he kept so much.  
  
Now, however, was not the time for dwelling futilely on the world's miseries and Draco's apparent indifference to them. She hurried down the long corridor to the back of the house. She could hear Draco's voice through the open door of her father's room.  
  
'Good evening, Papa.' Smiling cheerfully, she entered the bright, warm room. 'You're up late.'  
  
'I could say the same of you,' Arthur declared, regarding his daughter from a deep armchair beside a blazing fire. He looked well, his tawny eyes clear and sharp, his complexion smooth and pink, his thick mane of white hair luxuriant and glossy. He was wearing a fur-trimmed velvet dressing gown and fur-lined slippers, a rug across his knees. Books were heaped on the floor beside his chair, tumbled off the table at his side, lay open on the arm of his chair. He had a writing table across his lap, a quill in his hand, a sheet of parchment already covered in his spidery black writing.  
  
'We have had an evening of dissipation,' Virginia said. 'Rather different from work. How's it going?' She bent to kiss him.  
  
'Very well, child. Vladimir, do you remember that discussion we were having on Plato? About the influence of Pythagoras on his philosophy? Well I have found the reference I was looking for. in Socrates. I have it here, somewhere.' He began to rummage through the heap of books, from which bookmarks bristled like the spikes of a hedgehog.  
  
Draco took a seat beside the old man, and Virginia perched on the arm of a sofa across from them. Her father's cough had almost disappeared, and as she looked at him now, it was hard to imagine the smooth course of his life had been disrupted. He behaved as if he had no recollection of their three year sojourn in the East End alleys, of the days without sufficient food, the constant lack of warmth, the daily struggle to make and mend to keep adequate clothes on their backs. He had always behaved as if he had no idea how Virginia achieved her small miracles. He'd certainly showed no curiosity about the details of their past existence and had been singularly incurious about this change in their circumstances.  
  
When Virginia had explained to her father that she and Minister Vladimir Shickovavich had married without his consent because he had been too ill and feverish to be consulted, Arthur had offered no comment. Virginia had expected some reaction to this momentous fait accompli, and in the face of this calm acceptance of the new situation, she'd found herself expanding her explanation as if he were as sceptical and disapproving as she had expected him to be. She'd rattled on about how he'd been so ill that she'd felt his health was more important then convention and she'd agreed to a speedy and unceremonious marriage in order to hasten their move somewhere warmer and more comfortable.  
  
Her father had merely smiled, said he was sure she knew what she was doing. She'd always known what was best for herself and if she was happy, then so was he. And he had settled into his spacious apartments on Dover Street as if they had always been his.  
  
Draco had been surprisingly attentive to the old man, certainly above and beyond the call of duty in the circumstances, Virginia considered. And he'd evinced an astonishingly intimate knowledge of the classics that delighted Arthur Weasley. Not just knowledge, Virgina reflected, listening to the discussion. Enthusiasm. He seemed to fin Arthur's forays into the more abstruse realms of classical philosophy as fascinating as her father did.  
  
She, herself, had long exhausted her interest in Arthur's intellectual pursuits. He'd educated her rigorously in the classics, and she read and spoke Greek and Latin with an unusual fluency. Draco, being a Malfoy, had had the conventional education of a wellborn male, would have spoken Latin and Greek in preference to English throughout his school years. But somehow Virginia didn't think the young Draco had a solely conventional upbringing. Nevertheless, he was perfectly at home in the ancient worlds of Greece and Rome.  
  
How he'd acquired that education, he was of course, not saying.  
  
'Now I'm making such progress with this article, I must write to my publishers and tell them how it's going. Alderbury was most anxious I should keep them informed of my progress when we last corresponded,' Arthur said happily, wiping of his quill.  
  
A correspondence that had ceased three years earlier, Virginia reflected. But there was no virtue in pointing that out. It would only offend her father, and who was to say that Mr. Alderbury wasn't waiting with bated breath for the next progress report?  
  
She stood up. 'I think I'll go to bed, it's been a long evening. Do you have everything you need, Papa?'  
  
'Yes, thankyou, my dear.' He smiled and kissed her as she bent over him. 'I shall stay up a little while yet. Perhaps your husband would care to bear me company.' He turned to Draco, and there was no mistaking the mischief in his eyes. 'But, then again, perhaps not.'  
  
'I beg you to forgive me, sir.' Draco hid his surprise at that mischievously shrewd look. 'But I find myself a trifle fatigued.'  
  
'Of course, of course. Young people have no stamina these days.' Arthur waved him away, his eyes bright with that same look. 'Seek your bed, Shickovavich, and leave me to my philosophy.'  
  
'Goodnight, sir.' Draco bowed and turned to follow Virginia from the room.  
  
The door closed behind them, and Arthur Weasley smiled to himself. Surely they didn't think he didn't know what was going on. Virginia couldn't really believe him to be such a dumb idiot as to not know that this whole marriage tale was a gigantic fabrication. But fabrication or not, it had returned her to her rightful place in the world. And whatever lay behind this arrangement, it was one that clearly suited his daughter. He didn't care to speculate on what work she'd been doing when she'd leave him for long periods during their sojourn in poorer parts. When she returned, his books were redeemed from the pawnbroker, they dined from the dining table, and there was a fire in the hearth. But whatever she did to achieve those small miracles had taken a terrible toll.  
  
Now the drawn look had left her face, her eyes glowed again and the frisson between her and Minister Shickovavich was as apparent as a rainbow in a shower.  
  
He let the book fall closed on his lap and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. Perhaps he should be concerned about his daughter's reputation, about her honour. But such concepts had ceased to have any relevance after the Burrow incident. And if he hadn't questioned her activities in the C.V., he certainly didn't have the right to do so now.  
  
The blackness filled his head as it always did when he thought of his criminal idiocy, and he turned from the knowledge. Too confront it did no good and merely destroyed any chance for peace of mind.  
  
Virginia was happy. That was all that mattered. Arthur shook himself awake and returned to his books.  
  
'You've never said exactly how you intend to accomplish my revenge,' Virginia said, raising her arms to unpin her hair. She was naked, and the movement lifted her breasts, drew the skin of her back taut.  
  
Draco, shoeless but otherwise fully dressed, lay back on the bed, arms linked behind his head, watching with leisurely pleasure as she disrobed. 'The plan is not fully formed as yet.'  
  
'But do you have a plan?' She took off the high pads over which her hair had been piled and shook the scarlet tresses free.  
  
'Most certainly.'  
  
'And you're not going to tell me?' She picked up her hairbrush and studied him in the mirror.  
  
Draco laughed and swung off the bed. 'Let me brush your hair.' He crossed the room, his feet sinking into the Turkish carpet, and stood behind her.  
  
The silk of his clothes brushed against the bare skin of her back, a skin suddenly so sensitive that the silken caress was almost abrasive. Virginia shivered, watching in the mirror as her nipples grew hard and erect.  
  
He took the brush from her and began to draw it through her hair, placing one hand on the top of her head as he puled through the long, tangled curls.  
  
'Are you going to tell me?'  
  
'As yet there's nothing to tell. Now, don't distract me because I'm going to count to a hundred.'  
  
Virginia gave up for the present under the seductive stroked of the brush. Her eyes closed, her head drooped; she slipped into a sensuous trance, her body swaying gently as if she were a willow tree in the wind.  
  
When he stopped brushing, her eyes fluttered open again, meeting his in the mirror. His expression was serious and attentive. Gravely, he placed the brush down on the dresser and lifted her hair off her shoulder, letting it fall forward over her breasts. Reaching over her shoulders, his long white fingers parted the strands of hair, revealing her nipples and the pale circles around them. All the while, he held her gaze in the mirror, his eyes now deep and dark as coal.  
  
His hands slipped around her waist, cupping her breasts before sliding down over her ribs, his palms flattening on her belly.  
  
Her body in the mirror was white as alabaster against the black silk at her back. Soft and vulnerable in its nakedness. Her heart beat faster as his thigh moved against her buttocks, his knee nudging her thighs apart. The material of his pants rustled across the delicate skin of her inner thighs, his knee pressed upward, creating an exquisite friction that made her catch her lip between her teeth. She watched herself grow closer towards the peak, and watched Draco watching her.  
  
He smiled, a long, slow smile of satisfaction, enjoying her excitement as the pleasure built in her belly in ever tightening spirals, and at the instant before she could bear no more, he used his hands on her and the coil burst asunder. She fell back against him and he wrapped his arms around her, laughing softly into her hair.  
  
'I do love playing with you, sweet. You're so supremely responsive.'  
  
'Obedient to your every touch,' Virginia mumbled with a weak chuckle. 'I'm as clay in your hands.'  
  
'In matters of sex,' he qualified with mock solemnity, tightening his arms around her waist, resting his chin on the top of her head. 'I'm not so certain about other matters.'  
  
'And just what does that mean?' She tried to look and sound indignant but failed miserably at both.  
  
'Oh, you know quite well.' He swung her off her feet and over to the bed.  
  
'If you mean I don't accept your mastery without question, yes, I do know what you mean.' She lay on the where he dropped her, her hair a glowing fan around her.  
  
'Well, perhaps I'll just settle for the areas in which I have undisputed mastery,' Draco declared cheerfully, throwing off his clothes with an unseemly haste. 'At least for the moment.'  
  
Naked, he leaped onto the bed beside her and straddled her thighs. 'Now, princhipessa, you may await further dissolution and tremble!'  
  
'Oh, I do,' she said, running her tongue over her lips, reaching to grasp the erect shaft as it brushed over her belly. 'Even my toes are trembling, oh Prince of Darkness.' The pad of her thumb danced over the moistening tip of his flesh as her fingers moved behind, stroking the hard globes.  
  
'What did you mean, 'at least for the moment'?' she inquired, a gleam in her eye as she deepened her caress. His only response was sigh of pleasure.  
  
'Oh, never mind,' she murmured, her thighs shifting beneath his weight. 'I think I've lost interest in both the question and the answer. at least for the moment.'  
  
The clock on the mantel chimed four. The fire hissed and crackled. A gust of wind rattled the windowpane. From behind the bed curtains came low murmurs of delight as they moved into the darkness, their bodies blending in a fusion so complete, it denied the possibility of any dissonance.  
  
'Four o'clock and all's well.' The watchman's repetitive cry faded down the corner of King's Street as Blaise Les Sables emerged from the Revelry among the last of the evenings revellers. She was slightly tipsy, leaning on the arm of some stalwart young gentleman whose glazed eyes and somewhat rigid features indicated his own lack of sobriety.  
  
'Where's my limousine, Lawton?' Blaise demanded, staring down the now rapidly emptying street. 'I sent you to call for it.'  
  
'Oh, but I did ma'am. I assure you I did.' Her escort peered around intently, as if expecting the missing limousine to materialize from thin air.  
  
'Then why is it not here?' Les Sables demanded peevishly, huddling into her cloak as the wind whistled around the alley leading to the King's Place.  
  
'My limousine is at your service, Blaise.'  
  
Blaise turned at the smoothly considerate tones of Lucius Malfoy. 'Oh, I thought you'd gone home hours ago, Lucius.'  
  
'I've been playing at Sphix's Poison,' he said. 'But the party broke up a trifle suddenly when one of her servant's spotted a troop of the C.V. about to raid the house.' He laughed, the sound clear and hard in the frosty air. 'AA false alarm, of course, but it did rather dampen enthusiasm.'  
  
'Yes, I can imagine. Lawton, you've proved yourself singularly inept. I suggest you take yourself home to bed.' Blaise dismissed the hapless man tartly.  
  
'I did call your limousine. I do assure you,' her erstwhile escort protested. 'Can't think where it could have disappeared to.'  
  
'I daresay it turned into a pumpkin,' Malfoy said. 'Mistress, my limousine awaits your pleasure.' He offered his arm to Mistress Les Sables, and the two went off, leaving the Honourable Michael Lawton gazing at disconsolately and in some bewilderment after them.  
  
'You do know how to endure a lady's comfort, Malfoy,' Blaise observed appreciatively, as the chauffer spread a rug over her knees and adjusted the position of a wheat pack beneath her feet. 'In your company a woman would never find herself standing in the rain without an umbrella, or waiting for a chair in the wind, or finding her self seated as a bad table in the Piazza. Unlike that poor fool, Lawton.'  
  
'Setting up another flirtation, are you, Blaise?' Lucius inquired casually. 'I can't help feeling sorry for the infant. He clearly doesn't know you could eat him for supper.'  
  
Blaise laughed. 'Oh, I was just amusing myself, Lucius. There was a dearth of entertaining companions this evening. at least after the Vice Minister left. Indeed, I don't know why I persist on going to these insipid affairs.' Delicately, she adjusted a beauty patch high on her cheekbone. 'Of course, one must be seen.'  
  
'Of course.' Lucius agreed. 'And were you amusing yourself similarly with Minister Shickovavich?' The deceptively smooth, amused tone had vanished. He threw the question like a knife.  
  
'La, Lucius, what is it to you?' Blaise said with an artificial and uncertain laugh. 'Shickovavich's a most entertaining gentleman.'  
  
'I like to know who else plays in the same garden,' Malfoy said coldly. 'I'm a trifle fastidious, my dear, in some areas. But I daresay that's quite a novel concept for you.'  
  
Blaise Les Sables whitened with anger beneath the rouge, taking on a garish almost clown-like appearance. 'I don't believe I understand you, Minister.'  
  
'Oh, come now, Blaise, you're not such a fool,' Malfoy said, leaning forward, catching her chin on his forefinger. 'I thought I'd made it plain that I wish for exclusive rights to your body. Apart from whatever demands your husband might make, of course,' he added with a careless gesture of his free hand. 'I do accept that, as an obedient and loving wife, you must accommodate Les Sables in whatever manner he wishes.'  
  
He smiled, an angelic smile of benign understanding, but his fingers now grasped her chin painfully.  
  
Blaise grasped and tried to pull back. The limousine jolted in a pot-hole, and she was thrown forward against Lucius's knees. He caught her wrist with his free hand and held her in that position even as the limousine moved smoothly again. 'I'm perfectly content to end our little arrangement, if you so wish. We understand each other, I'm sure.' He released her abruptly and gave her a push that sent her back onto her seat. 'I don't use whores.'  
  
Blaise stared in shock at the pale glimmer of his face. His possessive streak had become more pronounced of late, but she hadn't taken it very seriously. Her fawning admirers, were always too eager for her attentions to risk annoying her. She knew that Lucius Malfoy was different, it was part of his attraction- that and his generosity. But she had always believed she could control him as she controlled the others. This was something new and frightening. She'd been frightened by men in her time in the Ministry restaurant, but there had always been a bell to ring and a muscular C.V. gentleman on call. Here, in this warm, swaying darkness, in Malfoy's limousine, driven by Malfoy's servants, there was no protection.  
  
'Vladimir Shickovavich means nothing to me,' she whispered, her eyes darting to the window, looking for some familiar landmark in the darkness. The distance from The Reveller to her house on Mount Street should have been accomplished in no more than fifteen minutes at this time of the morning, with no traffic. And yet they seemed to have been journeying for hours.  
  
Her companion made no response to this assertion. He leaned back against the velvet squabs and regarded her, his eyes vacant, expressionless, like grey holes in the serene planes of his face.  
  
Blaise began to shiver. It was not as if she were in the presence of the devil. 'why are we not at Mount Street yet?' she managed to ask shrinking into the corner.  
  
'Oh, are you in a hurry to be home, my dear? I beg your pardon, I thought you might enjoy a little tête-à-tête.' He smiled.  
  
A suspicion popped into her hair, became certainty. 'What happened to my limousine?'  
  
His smile broadened. 'As I said, I though you might enjoy a little tête-à- tête.'  
  
'You sent it away?' She felt like crying in bewilderment.  
  
'An accurate deduction,' Malfoy said dryly. 'I'm surprised it took you so long to come to it.' He reached up and knocked on the window separating the chauffer from the passengers. The chauffer responded to the knock by swing the vehicle to the right.  
  
Blaise clutched the strap above the window. 'Take me home.'  
  
'But of course,' he said, raising an eyebrow as if surprised. 'Where do you think I'm taking you? You should be at your door in about two minutes. By my estimation we should now be turning onto Audley Street.'  
  
Blaise huddled in her corner, nibbling a gloved fingertip. She was too frightened to speak, and when the carriage came to a halt and she recognized her own front door under the lamp, she flung open the door and tumbled to the street without waiting for the chauffer to lower the step.  
  
Lucius leaned out of the open door. 'Forgive me if I don't walk you to your door, my dear.'  
  
'I'll be calling on our son tomorrow, I would prefer you to not be there,' Blaise declared, her voice trembling but her courage returning with the safety of her own front door a mere three steps away.  
  
Lucius inclined his head in courteous acknowledgment. 'You desolate me, ma'am.' Then he withdrew into the limousine, pulling the door closed.  
  
Blaise ran up the steps to her own front door and hammered on the knocker until the night porter sleepily stumbled to open it.  
  
Lucius smiled to himself as the coach took him home to St James's square. He'd been tiring of Blaise, although he hadn't realized it until he'd seen her flirting with Vladimir. It was time for a new adventure. And who better to have it with than the young, fresh, and very spirited wife of a man he instinctively detested?  
  
He jumped from the limousine with a surge of energy more appropriate for the middle of the morning than the cold, dark hour before dawn. The front door opened before he could knock. The night porter in the Minister of Dark Magic's house knew better than to sleep on duty and had been holding himself in readiness for the sound of the carriage throughout the night. He didn't lock the door behind the Minister, however, since for the household the day's work had already begun.  
  
A boot boy, fresh from his own nights rest on the chilly stone floor of the scullery, slunk into the hall from this kitchen regions, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The second chauffer, his immediate superior, resplendent in the Malfoy livery, strode behind the lad, a bundle of keys in his hand, preparing to open up the doors to the main salons for the maidservants to begin the day's cleaning.  
  
The second chauffer saw the Minister the instant before the Minister saw him. He grabbed the collar of the boot boy's jacket and jerked him into the shadows of the staircase until the master was safely out of sight on the stairs. The Minister of Dark Art's gaze must not be offended by the sight of a seven-year-old boy with matted hair and filthy hands, his scrawny body enveloped in a grimy apron, roaming the public area of the house- even at five o'clock in the morning.  
  
Lucius strode into his own apartments, where his valet stood waiting for him, an air of alert solicitude on his face, despite the sleepless night.  
  
'You passed a pleasant evening, master?'  
  
'Yes, thank you.' Lucius flung himself into a chair and extended his feet. The servant bent and removed his master's shoes, then tenderly helped him out of his coat.  
  
One glance at his employer's expression told the experienced servant that conversation would not be welcome, so he went about his duties silently and, once the master was arrayed in his velvet dressing gown, drew back the bed curtains and turned down the coverlet. He stood expectantly beside the bed, while the Minister frowning took a turn about the room.  
  
'Oh, that'll be all, Fredericks.' The Minister waved him away. 'I can put myself to bed.'  
  
'Very good, master.' The servant bowed himself from the room and once outside straightened with a grimace. The Minister was an erratic sleeper, and one could never be certain whether he'd sleep for two hours or six. He'd seemed restless this early morning, which probably meant he'd be ringing his bell again in a couple of hours, and Fredericks would be expected to attend him as fresh and alert as if he'd slept the night away. In the circumstances he daren't risk taking more than a catnap on his sofa in the attic before readying himself for his employer's next summons.  
  
Lucius paced his bedchamber for a minute. The encounter with Mistress Athena Morgan Shickovavich followed by his confrontation with Blaise had excited him, and his loins were heavy, his blood hot with sexual appetite that needed gratification. He allowed his mind to dwell on the lissom figure of Vladimir Shickovavich's wife, on the mischievous sparkle in her eyes that seemed to suggest collusion, on the curve of her mouth, the discreetly veiled swell of her breasts. There was a freshness about her that excited him most powerfully. And she'd seemed inclined to play a part other than that of straight-laced ingénue bride.  
  
How would Vladimir Shickovavich take to wearing horns? The wuestion amused Lucius. His gaze flickered to the door connecting his apartments with his wife's. It was not a question he would ever ask himself.  
  
His blood grew hotter, so that a mist of perspiration coated his skin. His flesh rose beneath his gown, pulsating with the urgency of his need.  
  
He had a wife. An unsatisfactory wife in all respects, but her body was there, available to assuage this need. He strode to the door, flung it open, and entered the dark chamber.  
  
The curtains were drawn around the bed, and he threw them back.  
  
Narcissa had awakened as the door had banded on its hinges, and now she lay shivering under the covers. She knew what he'd come for and closed her eyes tightly as the bed curtains were opened and she felt his presence beside the bed. He always took her in this way, ever since she conceived Mira. Always suddenly in the night, always waking her from sleep, so that many nights she lay awake until dawn in dread apprehension, straining her ears in the dark, waiting for the visitation.  
  
He never spoke to her, except sometimes when he used coarse, vile language as he pushed hurtfully against the limits of her body, and the language seemed to excite him to greater fervency. There was never any pretence that she herself was important. He had a need, and it was her duty to supply that need.  
  
The bed shivered as he dropped heavily onto the mattress. He raised her nightgown, then seized her hands, holding them over her head. He pushed into her, and tears squeezed behind her eyelids at the tight unyielding pain.  
  
When it was over, he left her- without a word, without even drawing the bed curtains again- so that now she could see the first pink streaks of dawn through the window, an offering a new and bright day.  
  
Narcissa's tears flowed hot and strong as she lay in wide-eyed misery. This was her life, and there was nothing she could do about it. No one she could turn to. Her father would never listen to a complaint against her husband. Her husband was her lord and master in the eyes of the Church and the law, and how he chose to treat her was a matter for his own conscience. No one would have anything to say. The world would have nothing to say. 


	13. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Eleven  
  
'What are your names?' she asked. At their blank expressions she pointed to herself and said, 'Blaise Les Sables.' Then she pointed to the girls.  
  
'Nessie,' said one, the smallest.  
  
'Rosy,' announced another, the one with the great black eyes.  
  
'Blodgett. no! No!. Bridget,' corrected the tallest child.  
  
The last, the plump one, announced, 'Moriah.'  
  
'What strange names for witches. Where did you get those names?' Blaise asked, smiling. Moriah giggled, and Blaise gave it up. However was she to communicate with these children?  
  
When her hair was dry, Moriah jumped up to brush the long midnight strands. She stood behind the chair while the others sat cross-legged in front of Blaise. The little vixens, Blaise thought. They're the approval committee, and they take their job seriously. From time to time they squinted and nodded, mostly in the affirmative. Moriah kept up a running report and the girls again nodded. Nessie, the smallest, ran to get the hand mirror. 'You see?' asked Moriah proudly.  
  
Blaise looked at her reflection. She was amazed at the artfulness the child had exhibited. The black tresses were piled high on her head with a single curl falling over one shoulder. At her ears, tine tendrils of curls were permitted to escape the pins.  
  
They waited expectantly for her reaction. She smiled and repeated their names. 'Voldie,' she laughed and embraced the children. Unnoticed the housekeeper, Joss had entered the room and now watched the scenario on the veranda through icy, green eyes.  
  
With a loud clap of her hands the housekeeper dismissed the now subdued children. They scurried from the room, but not before the jolly, pig-tailed Moriah turned her head and gave Blaise a precocious wink. Blaise could not believe her eyes and had to stifle a laugh at the little girls' defiance.  
  
'How old are the children?' she asked the housekeeper.  
  
'They are ten-years old, Mistress Les Sables. Were they satisfactory?'  
  
'Most definitely. They're very experienced for girls so young.'  
  
'Mistress Malfoy trained them herself,' the housekeeper said coldly. 'Master Kelso is waiting for you on the east veranda. Minister Lucius is out on the plantation.' The cultured, musical voice of the ghost housekeeper was coldly aloof. 'Dinner shall be served at half past eight, Mistress Les Sables. Formal dress code.' She glided from the room with a grace Blaise envied.  
  
Blaise followed the housekeeper down the hall and out to the veranda with anticipation to meet hers and Lucius' illegitimate son again.  
  
'Good day Blaise!' Kelso said bowing low. Kelso announced bowing low.  
  
'Yes, it is,' Blaise said returning his smile.  
  
He rose to full height. Handsomely tall and of muscular build, he was an impressive figure for a young man barely in his twenties. His blue eyes smiled into hers and he impatiently brushed back a lock of springy, fair hair from his wide brow.  
  
'Let us sit,' Blaise said, seating herself on a rattan chair. 'Why is it that you're not out on the plantation with your father?'  
  
Kelso looked momentarily angry. He became engrossed in rubbing the thumb of his left hand between the index and middle finger, and then he pulled himself to attention. 'Father wanted someone from the family to be here to welcome you and to show you around,' he said offhandedly. Besides he's dealing with the rubber spell merchants today and father didn't want me aro- ' Suddenly, Kelso flushed and changed the subject. Blaise pretended not to notice the slip of tongue. Kelso then spoke of the plantation and the changes that had come to pass since he was a child. 'Every year we have more rubber spells and better markets,' he said. It sounded as though he were repeating a much learned school lesson.  
  
Blaise spoke of the girls and asked Kelso how they came to have such uncultured names.  
  
'That is Fathers doing, they're muggles and he bought them,' he shrugged. Hiss eyes sparkled as he spoke. 'They're wonderful,' he smiled, 'quick, bright, and eager to please. Especially Moriah. She's a quick little bird, isn't she?'  
  
Blaise thought back to the precocious wink and agreed with Kelso.  
  
'How many workers has Lucius employed?' she asked.  
  
'Over three hundred.'  
  
'Do all plantations have that many workers?' Blaise asked, avoiding using the word slave.  
  
'Some have more. Spondance Geery has, in all, only one hundred. Somehow he gets more work out of one hundred than we do with the three hundred we have,' he said frowning. 'Of course you must have heard he gave his slaves their freedom. I am sure someone must have told you,' he smiled.  
  
Blaise nodded. 'Has Lucius considered doing the same?' she asked.  
  
Kelso looked shocked. 'He says he gets no work from them now. What would they do if they were given their freedom?'  
  
'How long does he think he can hold off?' Blaise questioned. 'I heard that it's only a matter of time before the Ministry abolish slavery.'  
  
'It never will!' Kelso roared, startling Blaise to silence. Noting the shocked expression her face, he continued in a quieter voice that he visibly struggled to control. 'At the moment we're having a little trouble with our slaves. We hear they're planning an uprising. But we hear that very often. Sometimes I think they spread the rumour themselves just to irritate father.'  
  
Blaise glanced at the table next to Kelso. 'How beautiful,' she said admiring an array of wooden soldiers.  
  
'They're collectors items,' Kelso said proudly, handing her one of the brightest painted figures.  
  
Blaise admired the artistry and commented on the fine detail. 'How many do you have?' she asked.  
  
'Seventy six in all,' Kelso told her. 'I hope to reach one hundred one day soon.'  
  
'I've never seen such fine soldiers. You must be very fond of them,' Blaise said.  
  
'I am, Blaise. They're my most treasured possessions. I've been collecting them since I was a small boy.' Quickly, he changed the subject. 'Would you like to walk through the garden before the heat gets unbearable? Later, after lunch, I'll give you a tour of our Casa Grande.' He extended a long arm and helped Blaise from the chair. They walked down the steps, the perfume of the crepe jasmine heavy in the air.  
  
Blaise expressed delight over the abundance of sweet-smelling, lush flowers. Kelso explained how difficult it was to keep the jungle from creeping up to the door. 'The lawn gets shorter and shorter every year,' he laughed.  
  
Within an hour the heat and humidity reached a soaring point, and Blaise felt light-headed.  
  
'We had better get back,' Kelso said, noticing her pallor. 'I shouldn't have kept you out so long. You have to get used to the heat gradually.' Blaise secretly felt she would never grow accustomed to Lucius's home, as she walked behind Kelso on the narrow footpath.  
  
Setting themselves in a dim, cool room of the Casa Grande, Kelso rang for the house keeper and requested cool drinks. Blaise sat and rested her head on the head rest behind her chair. It appeared to be a conservatory of some sort, and she promptly asked Kelso what the room was used for.  
  
'It is what Narcissa calls her morning room. We moved her spinet in here after Mira was born. Mostly, its never played. I come here sometimes just to see if I can play it.' He explained. Blaise felt puzzled at the quick, choppy way her son spoke.  
  
Blaise asked no more questions as the house keeper offered her a tall, cool- looking drink. She tasted it, and her mouth puckered. 'What is it?'  
  
'Lime and papaya juice. We find it an excellent thirst quencher.'  
  
Blaise agreed. A trifle tart for her taste, but she supposed she would get used to it. 'Its so pleasant here in the house,' Blaise remarked. 'What a contrast to the heat outside.'  
  
'That's because the walls are more than a foot thick and the roof is tile. Would you care to see the rest of Casa Grande?'  
  
When Blaise nodded, Kelso jumped to attention, ready to guide her.  
  
The Casa was laid out in the shape of an M; the building surrounded a small courtyard paved with cobblestones and artfully landscaped with tropical shrubs and trees. Throughout, the furnishings were baroque in style, embellished by touches of gilt. Blaise found she was appreciative of her room with its simpler Regency style furniture. Lucius's taste was much to ostentatious for her liking. Kelso pointed different objects, and she carefully complimented them, seeing how he was enjoying his role of tour director. As they circled back to the morning room, he remarked, 'It's almost a perfect copy of the original, down to the details.'  
  
'The original?'  
  
'The original Casa Grande. Grandfather lived there. When he died it burned to the ground. Father had this one built soon after. The first Casa was about a mile from here. Father didn't build on the old foundations because he felt it advantageous that we be closer to the river.' His speech about the old Casa was spoken as though he were reading it from a Cook's tour pamphlet.  
  
Lunch was served in a cool, dim room in the back of the house. Blaise was surprised at the quality of the fine English china, and commented on it.  
  
'It's Narcissa's,' Kelso explained. 'We have many fine pieces as you will soon see.' The lunch was light and pleasant. A sweet salad of guavas and oranges with pineapple, then some thin slices of cheese with wafer thin slices of bread and another glass of the lime-papaya juice completed the meal. Kelso escorted Blaise to her room for the siesta and told her he would join her for tea at four and promised a horseback ride later.  
  
Blaise lay down with the thought of resting only. Soon her eyes closed and she was sound asleep. The oppressive heat had had its effect and enervated her. She woke drenched to the skin. Quickly, she shed her damp clothing and made a mental note to remove her outer clothing when she next took her siesta. Changing into a light riding clothing gear, she entered the conservatory where she had promised to join Kelso for tea. As she neared the door, she head a law-voiced conversation from within and was about to retrace her steps when she heard her name mentioned.  
  
'You know your father won't like it if you take the Senora riding. You know he doesn't approve of your horsemanship, Kelso.'  
  
It was the housekeeper. She sounded quite bossy and even petulant. 'Why not wait till someone returns and you can go with him.'  
  
Blaise stood quietly, listening shamelessly.  
  
'I'm sure, Elena, that Blaise is an accomplished horsewoman. You don't have to worry that she'll fall from her horse. I'll watch over her,' he said coldly. Blaise though that with such a blunt statement the housekeeper would have considered herself dismissed, but she continued to argue the point, her voice lowered, musical cadence gone.  
  
'If you disobey your father again, Kelso, I fear he will not order the new soldiers for you,' she said firmly.  
  
'Then I'll order them myself. I'm not a child any longer Elena, I can make a trip to Diagon Alley, as you well know. I intend to keep my promise to take Blaise riding after tea. See that you fetch it immediately,' he ordered imperiously.  
  
Blaise felt it was time to make her presence known. She retreated a few steps and stepped heavily on the tile floor, her heels making a clicking sound.  
  
'I hope I'm not late, Kelso,' she said, entering the room. The austere housekeeper glanced at Blaise with hostility as she left the room. She returned almost immediately with two fine cups, a pot of tea, and a tray of pastries.  
  
'I think it's a little cooler, don't you, Kelso?' Blaise asked.  
  
'Yes, it usually starts to cool off around tea time. It's the best part of the day.'  
  
Blaise had two cups of tea and several of the flaky pastries. Kelso seemed to have an insatiable appetite. He continued to eat pastries until the plate was empty. He smiled sheepishly at Blaise's look.  
  
'They're my favourite,' he remarked, then burst out laughing. His laughter was contagious, and Blaise joined him.  
  
'But not too good for the waistline,' she said playfully.  
  
'That doesn't worry me,' he smiled again as he finished his fourth cup of tea.  
  
'Is that your favourite, too?' Blaise asked with humour. He nodded happily as he set his cup down and stood up to shake the crumbs from his trousers.  
  
Blaise followed him through the kitchen area and walked out into the pebbled courtyard where two saddled horses stood waiting. Kelso helped Blaise mount and they set off, Kelso in the lead.  
  
Blaise rode a dappled grey, and Kelso a high spirited chestnut gelding. He seemed to ride with ease. She wondered vaguely at the housekeeper's warning him against disobeying Lucius. It had sounded as a warning. Suddenly, Kelso veered to the left and reined in the startled gelding. He dug his heels into the flank and the animal reared and pawed the air. Kelso continued to pull on the reins, and the horse fought all the harder. Blaise felt frightened. There didn't seem to be anything on the ground to startle the horse. Kelso freed the reins, and the horse quieted as he pawed the ground and nickered softly.  
  
'What happened, Kelso?' Blaise asked anxiously.  
  
Kelso's face looked contrite. 'I don't know. One minute he was fine and the next he was in the air.'  
  
'You should never pull the reins as you did; you only frighten him more,' Blaise said quietly.  
  
'I know. He was just out of control for the minute. Don't badger me. Come on, let's ride a bit further. See, over there?' he said pointing his finger in an easterly direction. 'That's the beginning of Vladimir Shickovavich's property.'  
  
Blaise looked in the direction Kelso pointed and wondered where Vladimir was at this moment. She had not long to find out. Kelso dug his heels into the flank of the gelding, and the horse snorted and took off at a gallop. At first glance it was evident that Kelso did not have a good seat. He'd been turned sideways to speak to Blaise when the horse broke into a run.  
  
Blaise followed but the speed of the animal was frightening and she felt helpless as she watched the horse and the rider plunge ahead.  
  
Suddenly, another rider came into view, took in the scene, and spurred his broom after the runaway gelding. Minutes later both riders returned. Vladimir Shickovavich led the now docile horse carrying Kelso.  
  
He nodded indifferently to Blaise, but the way her white riding clothes moulded itself to her slim supple curves did not escape him.  
  
'Does Lucius know you're riding his gelding?' Vladimir asked Kelso quietly.  
  
Kelso turned sullen and ignored the question. Vladimir shrugged and looked as though the hadn't expected an answer anyway.  
  
Blaise remained as mute as Kelso. Why should she say anything and have him turn it around to suit his satisfaction? Who cared what he though anyway, she muttered viciously under her breath. She had been insulted and humiliated enough by everyone to last her a lifetime.  
  
'You are trespassing on my property,' Vladimir said coldly. 'Come, I'll ride back with your to the boundary line to be sure that you get home safely.'  
  
'There's no need for you to play duenna for Blaise or myself. I'm perfectly capable of seeing that we both get home safely,' Kelso said petulantly.  
  
'It's not your friend that I'm concerned about, Kelso. I want to be sure that you get back to where you belong. Blaise here has proven that she can do just about anything.' His tone was so cold Blaise thought her blood would freeze in her veins.  
  
Kelso's head dropped as his gelding fell in behind Vladimir's blue black broom. Blaise marvelled at the broom and the man who rode it so effortlessly, knowing no other man would have been able to ride it with same agility Vladimir displayed.  
  
From time to time Kelso turned in his saddle to glare at Vladimir, who completely ignored him.  
  
Blaise's back stiffened. What business was it of Vladimir's if Kelso rode the gelding or not? He had a perfect right to chastise them for trespassing, but that was all. And why did he ask if his father new that Kelso was riding the gelding?  
  
Suddenly, Vladimir turned and stared at Blaise. Actually, she thought, it looked as though he was staring through her, a glint in his silver eyes. When he finally spoke, it so unnerved her she almost fell from her mount. How could he sound so brutal, so cold and hard. What was he saying? She had to pay attention.  
  
'Les Sables, there's no telling what might have happened to you if I hadn't come along when I did. It's not wise of you to ride here in the jungle until you are more familiar with the terrain, and it would be best if you rode with an experienced horseman, which Kelso, as you can see, is not. In short, this property is off limits to all who reside in the Malfoy Manor. Is that understood, Mrs. Les Sables?'  
  
'Perfectly,' Blaise hissed through clenched teeth.  
  
Vladimir stopped his broom. 'This is as far as I go with you. I doubt very much if Lucius would appreciate me escorting his son and guest to his plantation.' The grey eyes were slate coloured now in the afternoon sun. Almost murky, as he once again gazed past Blaise's head. Swinging the broom effortlessly, he headed back in the direction from which they had just come. 


End file.
